By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

ARLINGTON, Texas — Owen White will never forget Chad Wallach, the catcher he whiffed for his first MLB strikeout — or Hunter Renfroe, the 31-year-old power hitter who took White deep and handed him a loss in his debut on Tuesday night.

White was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with the Double A Frisco RoughRiders when he got a midnight call, as Monday turned into Tuesday. The call was from the Texas Rangers informing him that he was being called up to the major leagues.

White tried to get some sleep, but that didn’t work because his wife, Madi Barnhardt White, who played volleyball and softball for Carson while White was starring in baseball and basketball, tossed and turned with excitement after hearing the big news.

White found a plane flight for Madi from Fayetteville to Arlington, Texas, but he made the 350-mile drive to Arlington and the Rangers’ Globe Light Field by car. Those hours on the road gave him time to think about where he’d been in the five years since he was drafted and where he wanted to go next. It gave him some time for the chills to subside.

He’d called his parents shortly after the Rangers called him and more than 40 members of his family were soon making plans to be in Texas on Tuesday night for his debut.

White has three older sisters who were excellent high school and college athletes and they know a lot of people, so Twitter and Facebook buzzed on Tuesday morning and afternoon with rumors that White had been called up by the Rangers. Starting pitcher Jon Gray was sidelined with a blister. White seemed like the probable solution to fill the void.

White, a 23-year-old right-hander, is considered the organization’s best pitching prospect.

He was activated by Texas on Tuesday, but reports that White was starting that night’s game at Globe Light Field against the Los Angeles Angels proved to be a little off.

But he was there in uniform, waiting to get in the game, as elephant-sized butterflies swirled through his midsection. It would’ve been easier on his nerves to start.

The starting pitcher for the Rangers was lefty Cody Bradford, who had been promoted from Triple A. Bradford was working on short rest after having thrown 99 pitches on Friday, so there was little doubt White was going to be needed in relief.

Bradford executed his pitches well and exited in the top of the fifth inning, nursing a 2-1 lead. There was one out and the bases were clean when White entered to replace him.

White’s first MLB pitch to Wallach was a slider for a ball and was clocked at 85 mph. His second pitch was a fastball strike at 94.

He struck out Wallach on a wicked breaking pitch that swept away from the right-handed hitter. Then he got No. 9 batter Zach Neto out with one pitch. Neto lofted a breaking pitch in the air to right field to end the fifth inning.

White headed for the dugout with his first two MLB outs in the books, walking on air and pumping adrenaline. White’s family — the cameras had no trouble finding them — went crazy after the strikeout.

Corey Seager, who grew up about 20 miles away from White in Kannapolis, is red-hot and homered to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead. White was in position to be the winning pitcher, but the game spun the wrong way for the home team in the top of the sixth.

The sixth started well for White with a strikeout of Los Angeles lead-off hitter Taylor Ward.

All-world Shohei Ohtani was next. White threw him two straight changeups at different speeds, but Ohtani pulled a single to right on the second one.

After a long battle, veteran Brandon Drury also singled, and the Angels had the tying runs on the base paths.

The next batter was the most critical one of the game, as White faced slugger Anthony Rendon. White needed a double play to get out of the inning with the lead and he threw a great pitch that might have gotten that DP — a 93 mph sinker that Rendon rapped on the ground to second baseman Marcus Semien.

Semien flipped the ball to Seager, the shortstop, for the force out at second, but Seager lost control of the ball as he tried to complete the twin killing with the throw to first base. Ohtani scored, the lead was cut to 3-2, and the inning was extended.

Renfroe was next. White got ahead of him with a strike, but then Renfroe barreled a slider that was on the outside corner for a two-run, opposite-field homer. Everyone in MLB is dangerous, and Renfroe picked an opportune time for the Angels to emerge from an extended slump.

Renfroe’s homer traveled 365 feet to right field and would have been a harmless fly ball in at least a dozen MLB parks, but Globe Light Field is a haven for hitters.

That one lethal swing put the Angels, who were resting Mike Trout, in the driver’s seat, and they went on to take a 7-3 victory.

White started the seventh on the mound and gave up a hit, a walk and a sacrifice bunt before being relieved.

His final pitching line was two innings, with three runs, four hits, one walk and two strikeouts. His ERA stands at an unfriendly 13.50, but that shouldn’t last long.

He threw 36 pitches, 24 for strikes.

Texas manager Bruce Bochy liked what he saw.

“The kid threw strikes, attacked the zone,” he told reporters. “He was pretty unlucky. Some groundballs found holes. They hit one ball hard.”

White threw a four-seam fastball, a sinking fastball, two different breaking balls and mixed in a few changeups. It’s an assortment he can win with, given better luck.

This was the first game of a four-game series between two of the American League’s hotter teams.

The Rangers are in need of rotation help as Jacob deGrom is lost for the season with an elbow injury. White returned to Frisco on Wednesday, but he could get another call from Texas soon, and next time, it might be a much longer stay.

White has a reputation as a strike-thrower and enjoyed a dominant outing — seven innings, one hit, six strikeouts — in his most recent start for Frisco. He was named the Texas League Pitcher of the Week on Monday.

The Rangers picked White in the second round of the 2018 draft and signed him for $1.5 million after a stellar baseball career at Carson that included being North Carolina’s Gatorade Player of the Year.