Worcester Red Sox reliever Joe Jacques is a Manhattan project worth following this season

WORCESTER — WooSox reliever Joe Jacques has one of those résumés that requires at least a second look.

For one thing, Jacques was born in Shrewsbury. However, it’s the “other” Shrewsbury, the one in New Jersey — a very nice place by all accounts — but not the one on the eastern shore of Lake Quinsigamond, not the birthplace of Spag and discount retail.

From Shrewsbury, Jacques matriculated to Manhattan College. Manhattan is hardly the place those dreaming of Major League Baseball go to, and Jacques was not dreaming of the big leagues when he enrolled.

More on that later.

However, there have been 28 Manhattan alums play Major League Baseball through the decades, most of them a while ago. Mike Parisi, who pitched in 12 games for the Cardinals in 2008, is the most recent. Probably the most prominent is Chuck Schilling, the Red Sox second baseman from 1961 through ’65, who was third in American League Rookie of the Year voting in ’61.

Jaccques arrived in the Red Sox organization via the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft last year. He was left unproteced by the Pirates after an impressive Triple-A stint with the Indianapolis Indians. Jacques was 4-1 with a 3.62 ERA in 29 appearances there.

“He has very interesting pitch characteristics,” Red Sox farm director Brian Abraham said. “We felt there were some areas we could work with him on — command of the strike zone, his stuff. We felt like we could get him over here and make some small adjustments and allow him to be a success.”

Jacques just turned 28. He worked in two games during Worcester’s opening homestand versus Syracuse, then headed out to Buffalo with the rest of the team for that six-game series. He expects to see his parents in the Polar Park stands when the WooSox return home to face Columbus.

He was a three-sport athlete at Red Bank High back home and did not have a professional career in mind when he decided to head north for college.

“I went to Manhattan on kind of on a whim,” Jacques said. “I knew someone who was going to play ball at Manhattan, and I didn’t have any offers, so I showed up, tried out and made the team.”

He majored in finance, got his bachelor’s degree. and is now one class away from earning his MBA.

Jacques did not spend most of his college career flying under the radar. Actually, there was no radar at all for most of the games he pitched. He was hurt as a senior, so got to play a fifth season. He wound up working a game that was on everybody’s radar.

Just not for him.

Manhattan opened at Stetson, and Jacques opposed Logan Gilbert, eventually a first-round draft pick by the Mariners and now a major part of their rotation.

“I kind of got lucky,” Jacques said, “because there were like 100 scouts there, and I threw the ball well. It just took that one time for people to see me. There are a lot of people who slip through the cracks. It happened to me.”

Both Jacques and Gilbert were taken in the 2018 draft. Gilbert went in the first round. Jacques was picked by the Pirates in the 33rd round and made his way up the ladder, reaching Triple A in 2021.

“There are still sleepers out there,” Abraham said. “There is a lot of baseball being played in the United States and everywhere in the world. Our amateur guys look far and wide to find talent, and there are always interesting arms, interesting abilities.”

When the call comes, Jacques would be the fourth Manhattan alum to play for the Red Sox. The first was Jake Thielman in 1908, followed by Andy Karl in 1943, then Schilling. Thielman played for Manhattan when it was actually in Manhattan; the school moved to the Bronx in 1923 and kept its original name.

It is uniquely nicknamed the Jaspers after Brother Jasper, a major figure on campus in the 1800s.

“Brother Jasper is the mascot,” Jacques said, “and, in fact, he’s the one who invented the seventh-inning stretch. I don’t know the full details, but I know that’s what it is.”

Polar Park fans can think of that the next time the bottom of the seventh rolls around. That should be next Tuesday when the Columbus Clippers make their first-ever visit to Worcester. A former Jasper might have pitched the top of the seventh.

—Contact Bill Ballou at sports@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillBallouTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester Red Sox reliever Joe Jacques is Manhattan project worth watching