Former Blue Hen makes Major League debut

The Minnesota Twins shutout the Boston Red Sox 6-0 Thursday in a baseball matinee. The big news from that game was not the score or the complete game shutout thrown by Twins starter Joe Ryan, it was the major league debut of former Blue Hen and Hodgson Silver Eagle Brandon Walter. 

 

Brandon, a New Castle native played his high school baseball for Hodgson Silver Eagles and played his collegiate baseball for the Delaware Blue Hens. After three seasons at the University of Delaware Walter was  drafted by the Red Sox with the 797th overall pick in the 26th round.

 

Brandon entered the game in the second inning against the Twins in relief of Justin Garza. He ended up pitching 6.2 innings in relief allowing 3 runs, on 3 hits. Walter did settle down after giving up 3 runs in his first two innings of work. He threw a total of 92 pitches with 56 of them being strikes. 

 

Walter did accomplish some firsts as he recorded his first ever major league strikeout when he struck out Max Kelper. Unfortunately he did give up his first major league home run when Byron Buxton took him deep for his second home run of the game. Brandon also recorded 20 or more outs in relief which hadn’t been done in the Red Sox organization since 1944. 

 

In an article written by Ian Browne from MLB.com, he asked Brandon what it was like making his major league debut and Walter responded “Definitely some positives and some bad things. It was a blast obviously getting to pitch in  my first big league game,” said Walter. “I was trying not to think about that aspect of it too much. I just wanted to kind of keep us in the game. Give us length. Save the other bullpen guys and just try to get quick innings. I was able to do that some innings. Other innings, it kind of got away from me. I think overall, pretty good.”

 

Browne was also able to ask Red Sox manager Alex Cora about his thoughts on Walters outing and he responded “It was a good one,” said Cora. “He was able to move the ball around the strike zone. We were talking about it. Usually when they come out, we start thinking about guys who he reminds you of. Very [Ryan] Yarbrough-like, a few years ago, with the cutter and sinking it, throwing [the ball] up and down. That was a good one.” 

 

From the article and from manager Cora’s response it seems that the Red Sox were very happy with Walters’ outing. However Browne did mention that he thinks that Boston is going to option him back to Triple-A Worcester, but he thinks Walter did earn himself another chance to pitch for the Red Sox in upcoming games. We will be following his moves as the Red Sox organization decides on where Brandon will be headng in the next couple of weeks. Be sure to follow us on social media or check back for future articles as will be following his major league career, plus many other Delaware Natives.