The University of Missouri announced this afternoon that pitching coach Brian DeLunas passed away last night at the age of 46. He had been battling kidney disease.
A Missouri native and co-founder of St. Louis-based training facility Premier Pitching and Performance, DeLunas returned to Columbia for his second stint as Tigers pitching coach last June. In between those two runs, he worked for parts of four seasons in the major leagues. Most notably, he spent the 2018-20 seasons with the Mariners. He served as Seattle’s bullpen coach in both 2018 and 2020 (working remotely during the latter season due to concerns regarding COVID-19 and his preexisting kidney condition), while he spent the 2019 campaign as the M’s director of pitching development/strategies. After DeLunas and the Mariners parted ways at the end of 2020, he spent some time with the Mets as a special projects coordinator before being hired by Mizzou.
“Words cannot describe how heartbroken we are in the loss of our friend, Brian DeLunas,” Tigers head baseball coach Steve Bieser said in a statement. “In the months since his return to Mizzou, he has made an indelible impact on our team through his love of the game and his players along with his inspirational courage off the field. Brian was a tremendous husband, father, brother and coach, and our hearts go out to Johannah, Rory, Maren and the entire DeLunas family as we ask everyone to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.”
MLBTR joins many others throughout the game in sending our condolences to DeLunas’ family, friends and loved ones.
Thoughts and prayers.
Sincere condolences to the DeLuna family.
Brian was amazing. He went out of his way to talk baseball & pitching, even with amateur bloggers.
It really bums me out that he couldn’t find a donor. The search started in 2020. If you’re not an organ donor, please reconsider.
Amen to that.
RIP DeLuna…
Well, 2022 doesn’t seem like it’s going to be any better than ’20 or ’21.
@Highest IQ –
I say this with all sympathy, sincerity, and solemnity, but 2022 will likely be no different than 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and so on. Many people will likely die in 2022 because many people die every year. We all have to die some time, and since about 95% of people die of natural causes, most of us will never know ahead of time when our time on Earth is going to be up.
Yeah, well just wait til 2035
I know what you’re lol about. I don’t think it’s funny in that context.
My condolences to the DeLunas family.
Only 11% of people on kidney transplant lists ever receive a transplant. I don’t know if his condition made him eligible or not but donors are needed
RIP Brian…..
Well it’s easy to say just go out and donate your organs to strangers. I know you only need 1 kidney to survive. But what happens if the donor at some point develops problems and actually needs that kidney they donated? I have only personally known one person to donate a kidney and it was a young mother of several kids donating it to a male friend of the family about 20 years older (who never married or had kids by the way). I can see donating organs at the time of ones death but the other situations are quite different. I would donate a kidney to immediate family member if they were in otherwise great shape but not a complete stranger.
Kidneys from deceased persons is an option and have good rate of success. Not everyone is located near enough to resources to count on that type of donation.
That’s a shame. RIP
This is so sad. He was only 46 years old. My condolences to his family and friends. RIP.