Nacimiento del lanzador

The drear was no match for the day’s events, a glimpse into the future as the present unfolded before our awestruck eyes. It was not the most comfortable game to attend – a cold wind blew off the Ohio River while a continuous drizzle dampened the baseball world below it - but those of us few thousand spectators who came to witness the birth of a new star bore it with little complaint.

We knew something was different when the first pitch blew out of our young hero’s hand into the mitt of his battery mate, a ball, but a very fast ball, indeed. This first ball mattered none, for Chris Young struck out the first of three times against him (four total), and Johnny Cueto’s Major League career was underway.

Three up, three down, five times in a row, each inning igniting more glances up at that hit column, the zero glowing brighter as the number of outs changed from one to two to three and turned over again. The pitch count was low, the ball count even lower, and when seven nearly perfect innings had passed, 68 of 92 pitches had been strikes and the opposition hitters had been baffled. The only blemish was a mistake to Justin Upton, whose ball landed a few rows of seats above Adam Dunn’s head for the only hit and only run the defending National League West champions could muster.

Everyone knows you don’t mention a no hitter while it is in progress, but we all were well aware the potential was there, and you could feel the tension mounting until the homer prompted a standing O from the crowd for Cueto’s effort. It’s almost better that Upton got that hit in the sixth, because Dusty did not have to decide whether or not to leave this young arm in the game in pursuit of perfection, pushing his pitch count up to 120, no sweat for sturdy veterans like Aaron Harang, but too many for a 20 year old whose body has yet to fully develop and who has a long season ahead of him.

Ten strikeouts - D’back’s hitters looked clueless at the plate. 96 showed up on the gun several times, and you could see and hear and feel how hard that ball was popping. Then there was the beauty of the changeup and the early, empty swings it incited. There were few two ball counts, no three ball counts, and aside from the homer, only two balls resembling anything like a hit, both falling into the glove of Dunn in leftfield. The oft criticized Dunn made a great catch at the wall on one of those balls for the third out of an inning, and our young pitcher waited for his leftfielder to make his way towards the dugout to thank him for saving his no hitter. The kid proved he has the mental stuff, too, because even as you could see his heart sink when that Upton ball landed in the seats, he came right back and got the next six batters to complete his seven innings and put himself in line for the win.

Few Major League debuts have been better than the one I witnessed today at Great American Ballpark, a debut that injects a new shot of hope into the veins of my Reds fandom. If this kid pitches like this most of the year, all I can say is look out, National League.


Vocablo del día de Cueto: lanzador = pitcher

These 2008s should be 2007s. I don't know what year it is, I guess.