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| (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images) |
He was the 19th overall pick in the first round of the 2011 MLB Draft.
Matt Barnes, the 24-year old Red Sox rookie out of UConn, made his major league debut on Tuesday night against the juggernaut Orioles. The 6'4" righty has been a starter his whole career, but came in from the Boston bullpen to hurl three scoreless innings. He threw 30 of his 38 pitches for strikes (a 79% rate) and got out of a ninth inning jam. Was he nervous?
"After I got on the mound, instincts took over, and I wasn't really nervous at all...You just try to execute pitches. I felt like I was doing the same thing I've been doing my whole life." His manager,
John Farrell, was
very pleased with the effort,
"An impressive three innings of work. A high number of strikes, an outstanding changeup." Hopefully, we will see a lot of these types of performances from Barnes over the next several seasons.
