Robert Stephenson took the mound today for the Cincinnati Reds, making his Major League debut. From a Reds standpoint it kept a streak alive of having their 1st round draft pick making the Majors for every year from 2003-2011. The team made a quick decision after the game, optioning Stephenson back to Triple-A with a corresponding move coming tomorrow.
On the day, the 23-year-old right hander posted this line: 5.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 walks, 1 strikeout and 3 earned runs. The weather was less than ideal – raining at times, 41° and the wind was blowing out (and doing so hard at times). Robert Stephenson walked Maikel Franco twice and only recorded one strikeout on the day, a lower total than you’d expect but for the most part, he controlled the strikezone. With the weather at play his velocity was a bit lower than expected – averaging 92.4 MPH with his fastball on the day.
He topped out at 94.7 MPH on the day with his fastball. His splitter averaged 87 MPH and his curveball averaged 78 MPH in his debut. What’s interesting is that while he didn’t have many strikeouts, only one, he did have 10 swings and misses in the game on just 87 pitches. That’s a pretty strong rate of swings and misses – the sequencing of them just didn’t work out for the strikeouts on the day. Here’s the breakdown:
He allowed two long home runs in the game. The first one came on a pitch out of the strikezone (low) on a fairly good pitch that Hunter just went down and got. The second home run came on a pitch that was up in the zone to Ryan Howard. Both were on fastballs.
With how his final spring training start went, there were obvious concerns about just how well he would handle throwing strikes. In his big league debut he threw 57 strikes on 87 pitches, good for a 66% strike rate. That’s slightly better than league average. The nerves didn’t seem to bother him so much on the day.
Jon Moscot is expected to take over this spot in the rotation when it’s next needed in 10 days, with Stephenson heading to Triple-A to continue to develop for the time being. Odds are that we will see him again this season on the mound at Great American Ballpark, but for now he’s going to be pitching in a Bats uniform rounding out his game with Ted Power.