Before the game he was a teenager, sitting curled up in a clubhouse chair wearing horn-rimmed glasses and giant headphones and flipping a baseball like he was bored out of his mind.
When he took the mound he was a patriot, the loudspeakers blaring his requested song “El Sinaloense [The Sinaloan]” by Banda El Recodo, an anthem from his Mexican home state of Sinaloa.
Then, finally, after turning his back to the plate and pointing to the sky in prayer before his first career start at Dodger Stadium, Julio Urias became a pitcher.
A pitcher, a competitor, a fighter, the future.