Boston College Professional Athletes

Two Eagles, Two Spotlights

Boston College's footprint in MLB was hard to miss this week, with outfielder Sal Frelick and pitcher Michael King turning in performances that reminded the league — and the Chestnut Hill faithful — exactly why Eagles get drafted.

Frelick Catches Fire in Milwaukee

Sal Frelick was the engine of Milwaukee's offense across a pair of standout games. On Wednesday against the Mets, the BC product went 3-for-the-night with 2 RBIs and a run scored, anchoring an 8-1 Brewers blowout. Brice Turang's three-run homer grabbed the headlines, but Frelick's multi-hit, multi-RBI night was the kind of steady production that keeps a lineup humming. Then on Friday against the Rangers, he kept it going — adding 2 more hits, a run, and a walk.

Five hits across two games, a batting average climbing back toward .243 — Frelick is doing exactly what Milwaukee needs from a table-setter in the outfield. After a stretch where his bat had gone quieter than expected, this week looked like a genuine reset.

King Goes Deep Against Pittsburgh

On the mound for San Diego, Michael King delivered one of the cleaner outings of his season. Facing the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday, King went a full 7 innings and punched out 7 batters, keeping his ERA at a tidy 3.23. In an era when pitch counts and bullpen management make seven-inning starts increasingly rare, King's efficiency was notable — he did the job and let the Padres bullpen rest easy.

The matchup — King squaring off in a game previewed around the Paul Skenes storyline on the Pittsburgh side — gave the Eagles alum a prime stage, and he delivered. For a Padres team trying to stay relevant deep into August, length from a starter matters, and King provided it.

The Bigger Picture

Two Eagles, two different roles, two contributions that mattered. Frelick is carving out a legitimate MLB résumé as an on-base, contact-first outfielder. King has quietly built himself into one of the more reliable mid-rotation arms in the National League. Neither name dominates the national conversation — yet — but weeks like this are exactly how that changes.

The rest of the BC roster scattered across the league was quieter, with no significant statistical moments surfacing from the likes of Cody Morissette (Marlins), Emmet Sheehan (Dodgers), or the others during this stretch. But when Frelick and King are both dealing, Eagles fans have more than enough to watch.

The Sheehan Shuffle

Boston College's Emmet Sheehan can't seem to stay in one place — and that's not a compliment the Dodgers intended to give him.

Within the span of a chaotic week in Los Angeles, Sheehan was recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City and then optioned right back down, all in fewer than four days. The first move came when the Dodgers needed an extra bullpen arm and brought him up on the first day he was eligible to return following a 15-day optional assignment — a recall timed in part to cover for Edwin Díaz, who landed on the 15-day IL with neck inflammation. It seemed like a foothold. It wasn't.

Days later, ahead of a weekend series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers called up Paul Gervase from Oklahoma City and sent Sheehan right back down — their third consecutive game with a new bullpen addition. For Sheehan, it's a frustrating pattern: recalled to plug a hole, then optioned again once the roster math shifts. He entered the season in the Dodgers' starting rotation, but has spent the back half of summer bouncing between the majors and Triple-A without a stable foothold in either place.

At 25, Sheehan has the arm — the Dodgers wouldn't keep calling on him otherwise — but finding a defined role on one of baseball's deepest rosters remains the challenge. For now, his MLB career looks less like a progression and more like a game of musical chairs.

King Holds Court in San Diego

While Sheehan navigates roster turbulence, fellow Eagle Michael King is quietly having himself a season in San Diego.

On Wednesday, August 19, King took the mound for the Padres against the Mets and delivered exactly what a contender needs from its rotation: 6.2 innings, 4 strikeouts, and just 2 earned runs. His ERA sits at 3.38 on the season — a mark that reflects consistency, not flash, and the kind of durability that wins pennant races.

King has established himself as one of the more underrated arms in the National League, a BC product who has quietly outperformed expectations since arriving in San Diego. Wednesday's outing was business as usual.

The Eagle Ledger

The Sheehan-King contrast offers a clean snapshot of where BC's MLB contingent stands heading into the final stretch of the 2026 season. King is locked in, dependable, and pitching meaningful innings in a playoff race. Sheehan is talented but stranded in roster purgatory, his future with the big club uncertain each time the Dodgers' bullpen phone rings.

The rest of the Eagles' active alumni — from Sal Frelick in Milwaukee to Cody Morissette in Miami — are scattered across the league, but this week belonged to a pair of pitchers flying the Chestnut Hill flag on opposite coasts, with very different stories to tell.

Emmet Sheehan's Rotation Door Slams Shut

For Boston College alum Emmet Sheehan, the week of August 2 was the one that officially ended his run in the Dodgers' starting rotation — and it didn't go quietly.

Sheehan took the mound Sunday against the Boston Red Sox in the series finale at Dodger Stadium, and the result was ugly: 2⅔ innings, five earned runs, four strikeouts, and an ERA that ballooned to 5.29. The Red Sox completed the sweep, 8-4, and did so in front of a notable new spectator — Tarik Skubal, whose trade to Los Angeles had just been finalized. The symbolism was hard to miss.

The timing couldn't have been worse for the former Eagle. The Dodgers had just acquired Skubal, one of the game's elite starters, at the trade deadline, and Sheehan's disastrous outing the day prior had already made his spot in the rotation untenable. On deadline day, before the club's series opener in Chicago against the Cubs, the Dodgers made it official: Sheehan was optioned to Triple-A.

The ripple effect was immediate. Eric Lauer, who had been on the bubble himself — reportedly headed for the bullpen or potentially traded — survived the rotation shakeup and stepped in to start the Cubs series finale on August 5. Sheehan's path back to the big-league rotation now runs through the minors, with Skubal and a fully loaded Dodgers staff standing between him and a return.

It's a harsh but not entirely surprising outcome. Sheehan has shown flashes of frontline potential, but consistency has remained elusive, and in a win-now environment in Los Angeles, there's little margin for prolonged struggles.

---

Michael King Keeps Dealing in San Diego

While Sheehan's week unraveled, fellow BC alum Michael King continued his steady work for the Padres. The right-hander made two starts during the period, both respectable outings for a San Diego club fighting to stay relevant in the playoff race.

On Tuesday, August 4 against Arizona, King logged five innings and struck out five, allowing three earned runs in a 1-5 loss. He bounced back Saturday against the first-place Astros, delivering six innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts — a quality start that brought his ERA down to 3.37 on the season. At 6-8, King's record doesn't fully reflect the quality of his pitching; the Padres' offense has left him with little margin for error.

King has been a workhorse for San Diego since arriving via trade, and at this stage of the season — with the Padres (60-57) knotted with Houston in the standings — his ability to consistently eat innings and keep games close is exactly what the club needs.

---

Two Boston College pitchers, two very different weeks. Sheehan heads to Triple-A to reset; King is trending in the right direction at exactly the right time of year.