Nate Pearson’s Double-A debut went really well

The Blue Jays have been tough to watch as of late as the team has casually been dominated by the likes of the Angels, Rangers, and Twins over the past week, so I wouldn’t blame you if you’ve checked out a little bit. The good news is that there’s some positive Large Adult Son content to focus on.

The road to Double-A was a long and winding one for Nate Pearson. He had a delayed start to the 2018 season due to back tightness, and then when he finally did make his debut with High-A Dunedin, he took a liner off of his arm that would ultimately end his season. Exactly one year to the day that Pearson fractured his right ulna, he made his Double-A debut.

The former first-round pick allowed just two hits and struck out eight over five scoreless innings. He came into the game with a 0.86 ERA, 0.62 WHIP and 0.139 opponents’ batting average over six starts in Dunedin, so he now owns a very nice 0.69 ERA for the season across both levels.

Here are all eight of his strikeouts, in which he made the Portland Sea Dogs, aka the Baby Red Sox, look like a bunch of chumps:

Given the fact he didn’t really pitch last year, Pearson will be on a soft innings limit this year, meaning we might not see him get promoted to Triple-A Buffalo before the end of the season. Still, given the way things have been going for Toronto’s No. 1 pitching prospect, he could realistically be in the plans for a mid-or-late-season call-up in 2020.