Capping off breakout year, prospect Silvano Hechavarria records season-high seven strikeouts in 2025 finale

What a fantastic year from Silvano Hechavarria.

The 22-year-old righty, making the final start of his first season in North America, delivered another impressive performance with high-A Vancouver on Wednesday, striking out a season-high seven batters across 5.1 innings of two-run ball. He retired the first seven batters he faced before issuing a one-out walk in the third inning, his first of three in the game.

Hechavarria only surrendered three hits, the first of which left Nat Bailey Stadium for a solo home run in the fourth. The other two — a double followed by a single in the fifth — resulted in the second run against him, but they were sandwiched around a trio of strikeouts.

Vancouver’s offence did its part to provide Hechavarria with plenty of run support en route to an 8-2 victory over the Everett AquaSox (Seattle’s high-A affiliate), earning the young hurler his third win in four starts since joining the Canadians last month.

With the Northwest League wrapping up its regular season on Sunday, Hechavarria — the Toronto Blue Jays’ No. 26 prospect, per MLB Pipeline — has reached the end of his second professional campaign with the organization — his first year of full-season ball, which he split across three levels (Florida Complex League, single-A, high-A).

The native of Cuba signed out of the Dominican Republic as an international free agent in June 2024, arriving in the Dominican Summer League shortly after. He dominated teenagers at that level, posting a dazzling 1.84 ERA over 10 starts, punching out nearly a third of his batters faced while walking roughly eight per cent of them.

Those stellar results catapulted Hechavarria to the FCL at the beginning of ’25, where he made four starts before advancing to single-A Dunedin. And the good times kept on rolling, as he pitched to a sub-two ERA in 11 appearances (seven starts), issuing 53 strikeouts and only 11 walks across 47.1 innings.