Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones claimed his first real MLB victim on Monday night.
Jones has been extremely impressive through his first five major league starts. The right-hander has 39 strikeouts in 29 innings. One of those strikeouts literally sent a hitter to his knees.
Jones completely fooled Brice Turang with a 1-2 pitch in the top of the third inning of the Pirates’ 4-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday night. Jones threw a breaking ball down and in that Turang clearly did not see coming. Turang tried to check his swing and literally fell to the ground, but he went around for strike three.
That was just plain disrespectful.
Jones throws his fastball around 100 mph, so it seemed like Turang was gearing up for that pitch. Instead, he got a slider that started out over the plate and then disappeared off the face of the earth.
If the 22-year-old Jones can continue to make pitches like that, he is going to enjoy a long and successful MLB career.
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