Braves got just what they needed in Newcomb’s debut

ATLANTA This is the time of year when we see a lot of graduations. You might have even been to one in the past several weeks.

The Braves had one Saturday. One of their prized pitching prospects graduated from the minors to the majors.

Sean Newcomb turns 24 on Monday, so he got a great early birthday present Saturday when he pitched his first big league game. He graduated. He made it.

And it’s something Newcomb will never, ever forget.

“It was good. I felt good,” Newcomb said. “I just went out there attaching like I had been in (Triple-A) Gwinnett. It felt good to get through the first guy and to just keep going forward.”

Newcomb went 6.1 innings and gave up one unearned run on four hits. He walked two (one intentional) and struck out seven. Newcomb threw 96 pitches, with an impressive 70 for strikes. His throwing error led to the Mets’ first run, but that’s about all you can find wrong with Newcomb’s debut.

The Braves lost the game 6-1, but it really didn’t matter. Well, yeah, winning and losing always matters. But this game was about Newcomb, someone the Braves hope can be part of the rotation for a long time.

“It was satisfying to watch,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. “He was outstanding. That might have been his best outing as a pro. Maybe we had him in the wrong league.”

Newcomb has always been a pitcher who has struck out a lot and walked a lot of batters in the minor leagues. But he kept his pitch count down Saturday and walked only one unintentionally. Combine that with seven strikeouts, and that was a great debut.

Newcomb certainly looked composed on the mound. He admitted after he threw his first few pitches, he settled in and felt good.

“After that, I kind of felt like I had gotten it (the nerves) over with, so I took a deep breath and kept going forward,” Newcomb said.

“It was kind of his personality,” catcher Tyler Flowers said. “That’s the kind of guy he is. He doesn’t show a lot of emotion. He doesn’t get high. He doesn’t get low. He kind of does what he can do, takes care of what he can control. He did a great job with that.”

The Braves needed Newcomb to do this. They needed to see results from the trade that sent Andrelton Simmons to the Angels a year-and-a-half ago. They needed to see one of their heralded pitching prospects do something special.

“It’s refreshing and we’ve been talking about seeing the kids, so it’s nice to see one of them,” Snitker said.

Added Flowers, “If they all do that, we’ll be just fine with it. Obviously, there’s a lot of talk over the last couple of years about it. Hopefully, that’s the first head of the next rotation coming in. I think we’ll be in a good spot.”

Major league debuts tell you very little about how a pitcher will fare in his career. They are significant for the day, but only really provide a good story for the pitcher to tell his grandchildren about one day.

The Braves needed an excuse to keep Newcomb around, and he gave them one with a great debut. Newcomb has thrown his cap into the air. He’s made it. Now, he’s got to get out there in that big world called the Major Leagues and have a solid career.

Something tells me Bartolo Colon’s “left oblique strain” got a little worse on Saturday afternoon. That’s the exact storyline the Braves were looking for in Newcomb’s graduation Saturday at SunTrust Park.

This story was originally published June 10, 2017 at 7:10 PM with the headline "Braves got just what they needed in Newcomb’s debut."