It is the dream of every kid growing up – to make it to ‘The Show‘; Major League Baseball.

Twenty-four-year-old right-hander Ryan Pepiot made it to ‘The Show.’

And even though the Indianapolis, IN native and Dodgers third-round draft pick in 2019 out of Butler University lasted only three innings in his Major League debut, he allowed no runs and only one hit while striking out three of the 16 Pittsburgh Pirates batters he faced. He did, however, walk five of them and threw a total of 77 pitches, of which only 40 were for strikes, thus leading to his early departure after only three innings of work.

“I thought he competed,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of his new young right-hander. “Obviously, you don’t know what you’re going to get, a guy makes his debut, but I thought he handled himself really well.

“There were some misfires, just didn’t have the command, walked some batters, but made pitches when he needed to,” Roberts added. “When you’re at close to 80 pitches with three stressful innings, it just didn’t make sense to send him back out there. But I was happy for him, and it was a big moment.”

“It was exciting, a lot of nerves, happy to be out there,” Pepiot said. “But I didn’t make some of the pitches I wanted to, found myself in some traffic, but when I needed to, I was able to make some pitches to limit the damage.”

When he exited the game, there was no score. As such, and because he didn’t go the requisite five innings to qualify for a decision, Pepiot owns an 0-0 record and a spotless 0.00 ERA.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Dodgers bullpen was unable to keep up their end of the deal.

Although Messrs. Evan Phillips and Alex Vesia did not allow a run in their one; and two-thirds of an inning pitched respectively, the rest of the Dodgers relievers answering the bell completely imploded.

Right-hander Tommy Kahnle gave up three runs on two hits (both home runs), right-hander Daniel Hudson one run on three hits (one home run), and right-hander Brusdar Graterol one run on one hit (a triple).

But it wasn’t just the bullpen that threw Pepiot under the bus in his MLB debut. The Dodgers offense managed only five hits while stranding seven runners on base and went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. The absolute killer was when Dodgers’ second baseman Max Muncy – the ninth Dodgers batter to come to the plate in the top of the seventh inning – struck out looking with the bases in the eventual 5-3 Dodgers loss.

Play Ball!

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