SURPRISE, Ariz. — If he could throw a fastball in the high 90s, Satan himself would get plenty of chances from Major League clubs. And Rangers pitcher Matt Bush is something well short of the devil. But Bush, who made his spring debut with the big-league Rangers in a Cactus League game on Wednesday, joined the Texas team this winter with a long history of destructive behavior that kept him away from baseball and behind bars for the last three seasons.

Bush looked spectacular in his two-inning outing against the Cubs, mixing a fastball that clocked as high as 98 mph on the stadium gun with a devastating curveball that incurred wild swings and misses from big-league Cubs Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler. Working exclusively out of the stretch, Bush allowed no hits in the appearance while striking out two batters and walking one.

But results from two innings’ worth of a single exhibition game mean next to nothing in the scheme of a season or a career, and for Bush, the outing represents only another small step toward realizing a dream deferred by his own behavior.

“Look, I know the story, obviously,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said before Wednesday’s game. “I met him a couple of different times and talked to him, really engaging conversations. I know that the young man has a wealth of talent, as far as the arm is concerned. I know there’s huge desire to really get back and be able to pitch and eventually pitch in the big leagues. He’s got a pretty dynamic arm.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a Major League spring training game,” Bush said afterward.

“I was really excited, and just happy to have that opportunity again.”

Every day this spring, Bush makes the short walk from the nearby hotel suite he shares with his father to the Rangers’ facilities in the relentless Arizona sunshine. He took a longer and far less sunny route to get here.

The Padres drafted Bush with the first overall pick in the 2004 MLB Draft, right before the Tigers selected future MVP and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander. Bush’s struggles with the law began before he even made his professional debut.

Now 30 years old and still yet to appear in a regular-season Major League game, Bush got arrested for his part in an altercation at a nightclub near the Padres’ minor league complex mere weeks after signing with the club for a $3.15 million bonus. A self-described alcoholic, Bush struggled as a shortstop in the Padres’ low minors before converting to pitcher in 2007 and quickly falling victim to a torn elbow ligament that required Tommy John surgery. He got into another bar fight in Arizona during his rehab. The Padres finally traded him to the Blue Jays early in 2009, after Bush allegedly assaulted two freshmen at a Southern California high school while screaming, “I’m Matt (expletive) Bush!”

It somehow only got worse from there. Toronto released Bush at the end of that spring for violating the team’s no-tolerance policy by allegedly threatening a woman at a party near the Blue Jays’ spring-training home in Dunedin, Fla. He caught on with the Tampa Bay Rays and spent two seasons pitching in their minor-league system before landing on their restricted list — and eventually in a Florida prison — for yet another drunken rampage.

Driving a teammate’s car with a suspended license during spring training that year, Bush ran over 72-year-old motorcyclist Tony Trufano and fled the scene with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit. Trufano survived, and Bush ultimately pled no contest to DUI with serious bodily injury and was sentenced to 51 months in prison for his third DUI conviction.

According to a feature in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Bush began throwing baseballs again last May in the parking lot of a Golden Corral restaurant in Jacksonville, Fla., while he was on a work-release program. His throwing partner was Roy Silver, a Rangers’ player-development assistant who has also worked with outfielder Josh Hamilton in Hamilton’s own battle with addiction.

Now four years sober, Bush signed with the Rangers after Silver recommended him to the club. Earlier this spring, he told Evan Grant of the Dallas News that he relishes the chance to walk to the park every day as a free man, and that, while he’s not trying to hide from his past transgressions, he feels he is now better positioned to control himself:

“My past has been full of mistakes,” he added. “I have to understand that I’m an alcoholic and that I can’t be around that. I can’t control myself when I am. But the past is also the past and the mistakes were made when I was younger. I feel like I’m more aware of my situation now.”

Bush’s appearance in the big-league spring game on Wednesday marked a reward of sorts for a great performance in camp. He made the most of it, impressing his manager in the process.

“It was as good stuff as we’ve seen in camp,” Banister said after the game. “He had one walk, the balls were down in the strike zone, and they were explosive at the plate — carried the velocity all the way through the plate — had movement, had hop when it was in the upper quadrant of the strike zone. He threw the breaking ball out of the same tunnel — the same arm slot as the fastball — and he made it very tough on the hitters he faced.

“It was fun to watch. To step back out on this stage had to be fun for him.”

The pitcher confirmed as much.

“It was fun,” Bush said. “I love pitching. I love playing baseball. I’ve always been gifted and blessed with a strong arm. Seeing some of those big hitters swing and miss, it’s exciting.”

A two-inning relief stint in a Cactus League game hardly means redemption. And it certainly doesn’t change things for Trufano, the man nearly killed by Bush’s recklessness just a few years ago. But Bush served his time, and the outing on Wednesday marks a small step forward in a career riddled by dangerous missteps.

“That was really special,” said teammate Ian Desmond. “Obviously he has backed himself into some tough situations, but it’s kind of a the-strong-survive type deal with him. I’m happy for him.

“I know that people are going to say what they’re going to say, but we all get grace in our lives. For him to be able to bounce back and be on a big-league field again, even though it’s spring training, with the potential to make it back to the big leagues… I hope this time it works out for him. I’m pulling for him.”

Bush figures to start the season with the Rangers’ Class AA team in Frisco, Tex., some 30 miles northeast of the big-league club’s home park. The arsenal he showed on Wednesday suggests it may not be long before he advances past the minors, but Bush faces challenges that extend far beyond the bats of opposing hitters.

“It’s day by day,” he said when asked what he needed to do to keep himself out of trouble off the field.

“There’s things that I have to take care of each day, and I just follow through with that. I’m just so very happy to have this opportunity to be able to go back to the hotel and think about, ‘OK, that was a great day, that was fun, now what do I need to do?’ Just stay the course, so that I don’t have to go through the kind of things that I used to.”

Asked if he could now imagine himself pitching in a real Major League game, now nearly 12 years after being drafted first overall and less than a year removed from prison, Bush said:

“I always visualize it. I wonder what it’d be like throwing a regular-season game. It’d be a dream come true.”