There may not be many around baseball who believe Tim Tebow will make it in the sport, but the former Heisman Trophy winner is doing his best to make them reconsider.
Batting second in each of first 5 innings, Tebow wasted no time hitting the first pitch he saw from Cardinals lefty John Kilichowski, a 2016 draftee who played in Class A short season, over the fence in left-center. Kilichowski threw a 90 mph fastball up in the zone that Tebow was able to take deep.
Tebow has displayed some power in the early stages of his attempt at a baseball career, hitting home runs in batting practice, but had yet to face any in-game action. He went 2-for-4 against live pitching from his Mets teammates during intrasquad games.
"I'm trying to get used to the process, the whole routine of it," Tebow said Tuesday. "Baseball is new for me, but the work ethic is something I've been doing for a while."
In his next two at-bats, Tebow had two ground outs to shortstop, the first of them a chopper right at the bag that turned into an easy 6-3 double play. In his fourth at-bat, Tebow hit a 2-2 fastball on a solid line to center that sent the outfielder back, but was caught for an out. In at-bat No. 5, Tebow squibbed a 2-1 fastball down the third-base line and was thrown out at first.
