Los Angeles Dodgers Julio Urias Makes His MLB Debut

The Los Angeles Dodgers top prospect, and the second-ranked prospect in baseball made his big league debut on Friday night in Flushing. Julio Urias was pounced on early and was bounced before completing three innings.

On an 81 degree night, one that Julio Urias described as the “happiest day of my life” to MLB.com reporters Ken Gurnick and Troy Provvost-Heron following the game, the outing sure didn’t last a long time after the New York Mets touched the 19-year-old lefty up for three runs in the first on a Neil Walker double followed by a Juan Lagares two-rbi single.

Obviously Urias would have liked to start his Major League career by dominating over seven shutout frames instead of going just 2.2 innings due to ineffectiveness and pitch count. In his time on the bump, Urias tossed 81 pitches with just 42 of them being called strikes, giving up five hits and four walks while striking out three.

There were certainly bright spots in his first outing, like recording the first two outs of his career via the punch-out, getting Curtis Granderson to K to lead off the game and then getting David Wright to swing through a 95 mile per hour heater with one out.

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After Wright’s at-bat, Urias depended a lot on his fastball, partially because Yoenis Cespedes has been deadly against off-speed offerings recently, and likely due to nerves hurting his command with his other offerings. Arguably the prettiest pitch he threw was in the three-run first against Wright, who swung through what Bob Costas called a “soft curve”. It could have also been a changeup. Even the great Costas wasn’t sure what to call it.

The very next pitch was a fastball to the backstop.

Of course his lack of control and not being able to go deep into the ballgame hurt the allure of his debut, but there were bits and pieces of the performance that show that the Dodgers have plenty to be excited about in the coming weeks.

It’s not every day that a teenager is brought up to make his big league debut. In fact, the last time it happened was in 2005 when Felix Hernandez, who rules an entire realm these days, took the mound for the Seattle Mariners. According to the MLB Network broadcast, the only two position players to make their debuts as teenagers that are currently playing in the Majors are Adrian Beltre (1998, Dodgers) and Bryce Harper (2012, Nationals).

Of course, there has been a lot of talk about Fernando Valenzuela in comparison to Urias, partially because of their age at the time they debuted (Urias was 30 days younger than Valenzuela for his debut) and partially because they both hail from Mexico. Oh, and that they are both donning Dodger Blue.

During his first seven seasons with the Dodgers, Valenzuela went 99-68 with an average ERA of 2.94 which got him named to six All-Star games. It’s safe to say that Los Angeles will take anything close to that kind of production from their new 19-year-old southpaw.

The three runs he allowed to the Mets on Friday night were not the most he has allowed this season. That honor currently belongs to the Nashville Sounds (Oakland A’s) who hung four on Urias back on April 16 over five innings. Nashville is also the only team to take him deep this season, with dingers off the bats of Renato Nunez and Joey Wendle. Other than those two home runs, the last long-ball Urias had given up was back on July 26 of last season.

Urias entered the game with a scoreless inning streak of 27, spanning the final inning from a five frame, one-run performance on April 28, and his subsequent five starts, leading to his debut on Friday night.

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If the rotation holds, Julio Urias will be making his second start against the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley on Wednesday. The Dodgers could also make an attempt to hold him back until next Friday, when they will be home facing the not-so-high-powered Atlanta Braves, but the likelihood of that happening are not terribly high.

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