PEORIA, Ariz. _ Logan Allen remembers the last time his older brother, Philip, attended a baseball game. Logan pitched a little bit, played some first base. He might have hit a home run. That part he is a bit fuzzy on, but the image of Philip on the top steps of his high school's baseball field, smiling under his baseball cap as family and friends crowded around his wheelchair, is burned into his memory.
"I remember crying after that game," the 21-year-old Allen recalled. "I would kill for that (again). It would be incredible."
One of a dozen or so Padres competing for a job in a wide-open starting rotation, Allen faces a considerable challenge as he wades through his first big league camp with just 27 innings above Double-A on his resume.
The Texas League's pitcher of the year in 2018 and one of the game's top-100 prospects, Allen wields formidable weapons in a late-diving "Vulcan" change-up, a 90-93 mph four-seam fastball that he can spot on either side of the plate and two effective breaking balls.
What truly sets Logan Allen apart, however, is his source of motivation as he ascends the Padres system: his 31-year-old brother Philip.
"He's one of those kids who will never have the opportunity to do what I'm doing," Logan said. "There's a lot of the kids in the world like that. I don't want to be one of those guys who takes his opportunity and throws it down the drain."
