One of baseball’s top prospects, starter Nate Pearson of the Toronto Blue Jays, will make his major league debut tonight. Pearson is the Jays’ No. 1 ranked prospect and No. 10 across the league, according to MLB Pipeline. He and his triple-digit fastball and outstanding slider will face off against the Washington Nationals.
Pearson, a 28th round pick in the 2017 draft, has really only had one season’s worth of minor league experience -- 123 total innings -- due to injuries that sidelined him for almost all of the 2018 season. Last year, though, he showed that he is ready for the bigs. He made six starts at high-A Dunedin, going 3-0 while striking out 35 and walking only three in 21 innings. In 16 starts at Double-A New Hampshire he struck out 69 batters in 62.2 innings and posting a 2.59 ERA. He finally made three starts at Triple-A, allowing six runs in 18 innings and striking out 15.
Pearson’s first opponent: Max Scherzer. Who, I’m told, has some pretty good stuff as well.
