Miami Marlins: Evaluating Kyle Barraclough’s debut

On July 24th, Steve Cishek was traded to the Cardinals for Kyle Barraclough, a Double-A reliever. Two weeks later, Barraclough made his major league debut for the Marlins, pitching the eighth inning in Miami’s 6-3 in Atlanta. 

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Barraclough, pronounced ‘Bear Claw,’ retired all three batters he faced last night, impressing in his first appearance at the big league level. This season in the minors, Barraclough pitched in 38 games (43 2/3 IP), sported a 3-0 record, 2.06 ERA, .185 opponents batting average, and 14 saves.

His achilles heal is walks. While he struck out 60 batters in those 43 2/3 innings, he managed to walk 30. Barraclough discussed his command with Sun Sentinel’s Craig Davis.

“It was a lot of what I was doing in Springfield, just trying to throw strikes, mainly,” Barraclough said. “That’s kind of been my Achilles heel. If I’m in the zone, I’m good; if not, it’s kind of back and forth.”

Control didn’t seem to be a problem last night for Barraclough. Let’s go through each at bat in the youngster’s debut.