Rays pitching prospect Matt Moore made his major-league debut in last night’s 6-2 loss to the O’s. It wasn’t fantastic: he allowed two runs on three hits in one and a third in relief.
It was a weird first appearance too. He and the bullpen coaches thought he was supposed to start the seventh inning, and had even started his way out to the field, but Joe Maddon kept Wade Davis on the hill to face two batters before actually calling for him. Did it rattle him? I dunno. Figure he had to be rattled anyway making his debut. He came in with the Rays down 4-2.
All that said, he looked good until Matt Wieters took him deep for a two-run homer in the eighth. He retired his first four batters, including strikeouts of J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis to start the eighth, flashing a 96-97 m.p.h. heater. But then a single to Vlad Guerrero and that bomb to Wieters happened. Maddon left him in for one more batter to see how he’d react, and he gave up a double to Chris Davis. Then came the hook.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Moore was so insanely dominant in the minors that last night’s rocky outing should be indicative. But no, probably not how he visualized it going down.
