Michael Kopech only threw two innings in his MLB debut, and Joe Mauer was the only batter he faced twice, so there's not a whole lot to take away from his first start. He established his fastball and waited for the Twins to force a change. Even though he spent a lot of time in the middle of the zone, they couldn't -- maybe because the heat was high enough.
The chart also shows that the sliders didn't get him in trouble -- two swinging strikes, one looking, one ball in play out of eight. Kopech said his favorite pitch was a swing-and-miss changeup, which indeed was a dandy ...
... but as you see from the other green dots, he got under the subsequent changeups he threw.
While Kopech kept himself mostly under control, he did slip into overthrowing a few times, most notably an inside fastball that clipped Robbie Grossman after CB Bucknor didn't give him strike three on a good-looking inside-corner heater. The Twins did what they could to rattle him by fouling off 16 pitches, which contributed to the kind of early Carlos Rodon inefficiency I imagined from him, but it didn't succeed in derailing the abbreviated start.
I also assumed Kopech would have some issues with channeling energy, because he often ran hot even in Triple-A games with much lower stakes (figuratively, although he also sweated a ton). With this as his history, the way he pitched over a pair of singles to start his night ranks as his most impressive accomplishment in his two-inning career.
Kopech was a little disappointed by the weather curtailing his debut, and he has 20,000 or people right there with him. It's hard to argue with other elements. The Sox sold more than 9,000 tickets on his name alone, he's in the books now, and he still has an 0.00 ERA despite a quivering lip, so it's not all that bad.
"It was a dream come true. It's everything I thought about since a little kid. I was pumped," Kopech said. "You see the fans engaged the way they were. It really made me feel more comfortable and feel like I belonged. I just tried to do what I do best and throw strikes."
If the rotation holds -- and if he doesn't get the job done in Detroit on Sunday -- fans might have a shot to see his first MLB victory when the Sox come back home to face Boston.
