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Jack Leiter's MLB debut gave us one great announcer compliment before it turned sour

While Jack Leiter's debut didn't have a storybook ending, he did have his moments of brilliance.
Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Nolan Writin'

Texas Rangers v Detroit Tigers / Duane Burleson/GettyImages

Things were going pretty well during the first inning of Jack Leiter's major league debut. Leiter's stuff looked live and he didn't seem intimidated facing a underrated Detroit Tigers team whose production has been better than the stats might suggest. The first batter he faced, Riley Greene, looked at three straight pitches for Leiter's first big league strikeout. Again, great start.

A couple of batters later, Leiter would face off against Kerry Carpenter and the Texas Rangers rookie unleashed a changeup that not only put away a red-hot Tigers' hitter for his second strikeout of the game, but it had the announcers proclaiming the pitch to be "evil" it was so good.

Unfortunately, the scoreless first inning for Leiter would give way to a nightmarish second inning as the Tigers clearly picked up on something Leiter was doing. The right-hander's command faltered over the course of the 32 pitches he threw in the inning.

Jack Leiter's strong first inning gave way to a disaster in the second

It took Leiter 20 pitches to get through the first as he gave up a single and a walk, but that wasn't the end of the world. However, the second inning started with the following before Leiter recorded a single out:

Walk
Single
Double (to Javy Baez, woof)

After an RBI groundout made it a 4-2 game, Riley Green tripled to bring in another run for the Tigers, Mark Canha then tied the game with an RBI single, and just like that, the four-run lead that the Rangers' offense had handed to him was gone. Leiter victimized Carpenter again with a strikeout before getting a force out to end the inning. But the damage was done and one hopes that Leiter's buddy, Anthony Volpe, wasn't near too many things that could be considered "breakable".

To Leiter's credit, he settled down in the third inning after Texas' offense pushed across two more runs off of Tigers' pitcher Kenta Maeda. Leiter was able to get a much needed and quick 1-2-3 inning. Leiter got two outs in short succession during the fourth before giving up a double to Greene and a walk to Canha before things looked like they could unravel once again.

Sadly, that is exactly what happened. Carpenter wasn't fooled a third time and a two-run triple off his bat made it a 7-6 game. Once Spencer Torkelson cranked a double to tie the game, Leiter's day was done with his final line ending with 3.2 innings pitched, eight hits allowed, seven earned runs, three walks, and three punch outs.

To say it was an inauspicious MLB debut for Leiter would be fair, but we will always have that evil changeup.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.