The most anticipated Major League pitching debut of the season took place on Saturday night in Philadelphia. 20-year-old Julio Teheran made his Major League debut for the Atlanta Braves against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The debut for Teheran didn’t go quite as planned as he lasted only 4.2 innings. He allowed four hits, three runs, two walks, and struck out one during the 86-pitch effort.
What did Teheran in was his inability to establish his fastball early in the count. Teheran fell behind a lot of the Phillie batters early in the game. He wasn’t able to spot his fastball, which was in the 92-94 mph range all night, early in the count and in turn, the Phillies laid off his changeup.
The one thing that stood out to me during the course of Teheran’s appearance was how comfortable the Phillie hitters looked in the batters box. They were all over his fastball and never flinched at his changeup.
How a hitter takes a pitch tells you a lot about how they feel in the batter’s box. The Phillie batters took pitches against Teheran as if they had faced him 100 times before or he was tipping his pitches and they knew what was coming. He didn’t fool anyone.
It wasn’t all bad for Teheran. His third pitch is his curve and I thought it was a plus pitch for him on Saturday night. I had him throwing eight curves (PitchFX had him at nine) and he probably should have thrown more. He snapped off a wicked curve to Ryan Howard in the first that was a thing of beauty.
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