The Houston Astros’ 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner and three-time AL Gold Glove Award winn­­er, Dallas Keuchel, had good reason to be wary. The 30-year-old left-hander recently told MLB.com that he was a little hesitant when the notion of doing a nude photo shoot for ESPN the Magazine‘s 2018 “Body Issue,” published June 25, was brought up. Featuring athletes from many other sports in the altogether, the “Body Issue” is an annual occurrence.

Featured in the issue are images of Keuchel pitching on a dirt field, standing in a small tunnel, and posing in front of a large pile of metal debris in a night shot. The photos, in a shoot that lasted roughly 10 hours in a quarry near Austin, TX, were taken by sports and celebrity photographer Kurt Iswarienko.

In fact, according to Raging Topics, the photo shoot took place May 21, on a Monday homestand off-day at the Yearwood Quarry in nearby Georgetown, an Austin suburb 27 miles north of the Texas Capitol building.

“It was a little nerve-wracking,” Keuchel admitted, adding reaction from teammates is pending. He did offer that some of the more outgoing members of the team (looking at you, Alex Bregman, Josh Reddick, and George Springer) have given him some grief, which he totally understands, if not completely welcomes.

“Just overall when I thought about it, I thought about pushing myself and getting out of the comfort level of what I usually do, who I am as a person, and I thought [no] better way to represent myself in an imperfect situation than the Body Issue. Nobody’s perfect in this world, and I think that was a good message as well. At the end of the day, it was fun. I got to meet some really cool people, and it’s something I’ll never forget.”

“Kurt, the photographer, was great, and I got to meet him beforehand and a few of the people,” Keuchel revealed. “I played catch on set. That was interesting. I never played catch without clothes on. Just the whole day was a really cool experience. I tried to get the whole pitching staff in the shoot, but none of our off-days lined up together.

“When I’m on the mound, I don’t really see anybody, I don’t hear anything, but when you’re standing by yourself with no clothes on and getting photographed, it’s a little bit different because you hear everything,” he said. “You hear the cricket noises, the hear the lenses going. Everything.”

“I was really pleased with the product,” Keuchel admitted, after having only seen a couple preview photos. “That’s something I’ll always remember and I’ll hopefully have a magazine on a mantle at some point and look back in 30, 40 years and say I was decent shape at one point.”

Honored to be chosen for the @espn #bodyissue …it was a true team effort. Big thanks to the creative eye behind the lens @kurtiswarienko https://t.co/4dJJ9SxkvD pic.twitter.com/8p6xdC5FkP — Dallas Keuchel (@kidkeuchy) June 25, 2018

Related: Houston Texans’ Vince Wilfork Makes an Appearance in the “Body” Issue