San Diego Padres: Brad Wieck’s Lights Out MLB Debut Against Texas

On Friday night, another San Diego Padres rookie made his Major League debut.

There wasn’t much to write home about after last night’s game between the San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers. The Rangers walked out of Petco Park with a 5-0 victory in game one of the three-game weekend series, led by Jurickson Profar‘s three-hit performance, including a two-run home run off Phil Maton.

As for the Padres, the offense managed just five hits, all singles. Two of them came off the bat of Franmil Reyes who raised his batting average to .271 on the season. Overall, the offense spoiled a solid outing by starting pitcher Robbie Erlin.

Erlin surrendered one earned run on six hits, striking out six and walking none across his 5.1 innings of work. It was a pleasantly surprising performance from Erlin who had given up 23 hits, 15 runs, and three home runs over his last three starts (13 innings).

San Diego Padres rookie debut.

The highlight of the evening was the Major League Baseball debut of Padres reliever Brad Wieck. Wieck entered the game to pitch the eighth inning, in front of the hometown San Diego crowd at Petco Park.

Wieck needed 12 pitches to work through his first MLB inning, producing two flyball outs to Manuel Margot in centerfield and a groundball out to Freddy Galvis. An impressive outing considering he faced off against Delino DeShields, Shin-Soo Choo, and Elvis Andrus.

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Looking at his Baseball Savant pitch data, Wieck threw 11 fastballs and one changeup, with the lone offspeed pitch producing his one swing and miss. His fastball averaged 91.6 mph, maxing out on his last pitch at 93.3 mph, painting the outside part of the plate, belt-high.

The 26-year-old, 6’9″ left-handed pitcher is a dominating presence and has been a force to reckon with down in the minor leagues. Over his five-year MiLB career, Wieck struck out 402 hitters in 295 innings, limiting opponents to 14 home runs and a .229 average. He posted a 2.99 earned run average and 1.26 WHIP during that time frame.

Wieck will have two more weeks to showcase his abilities at the major league level and is sure to be in the thick of a tough and crowded bullpen competition come next spring training. With the AAA El Paso Chihuahuas this season, Wieck showed no real difference in his left/right splits, meaning he’s more than just a lefty specialist.

It seems as if every week we see a new intriguing bullpen arm come up to the major leagues. While there will be no worries about the position next year, it will be the most intriguing spring training competition.