Red Sox pitching prospect Bryan Mata makes debuts for Triple-A WooSox
Red Sox pitching prospect Bryan Mata made his Triple-A debut for the WooSox on Tuesday night.
The right-hander only lasted three innings, allowing two hits, four walks and one strikeout.
Despite his struggles on the mound he was able to top his fastball out at 100-mph multiple times.
“I thought he was all right. It was the deep counts that got him and not even necessarily the deep counts, but there was a number of hitters that just spoiled a lot of pitches on him with two strikes,” WooSox manager Chad Tracy said following the game. “At the end day gave up one run. Outside of that was pretty much scoreless, just the deep counts, the long at-bats is what got him and drove his pitch count up enough where we’re creeping on 80 pitches here and we’re at three innings. So it was smart to pull the plug at that point.”
The 23-year-old hurler fell behind hitters five times in the first inning. It took him 29 pitches to get out of the inning.
It’s likely that emotions and jitters got in the way of Mata’s first start with the WooSox. The No. 2 pitching prospect has been battling back from Tommy John survey to earn his promotion.
“As far as taking away some good things, I was able to get out of some trouble early in the innings and hopefully I feel like I can probably control my emotions a little more and also can help myself out of innings a little bit faster,” Mata said through translator and WooSox bench coach Jose Flores.
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