Former TCU ace makes striking debut for Royals

Former TCU ace Brandon Finnegan made his major league debut on Saturday and he couldn’t have asked for a bigger stage.

Finnegan, who played his last game with the Horned Frogs on June 19 in the College World Series, pitched two hitless innings against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and struck out two, including Derek Jeter to end the sixth inning.

Finnegan joined the Kansas City Royals big league team on Monday after making a quick ascent through the Royals farm system, first at High A Wilmington and then Double A Northwest Arkansas.

The left-hander had watched from the bullpen during the Royals next four games, including the first three against the Texas Rangers, his favorite team while attending Fort Worth Southwest High School. He finally came out of the bullpen against the Yankees to start the sixth inning.

Finnegan forced John Ryan Murphy to fly out to center field on his first pitch, a 92 mph fastball. He then struck out Jacoby Ellsbury, getting ahead 0-2 with a fastball and slider, topping out at 95 mph before getting him swinging on a 1-2 84 mph changeup. Finnegan said he stepped off the rubber to take in his first major league strikeout. He gave the next batter, Jeter, four consecutive fastballs, the first a ball, before getting him swinging on a 94 mph heater to end the inning.

“That was fun,” Finnegan said of facing Jeter. “That was probably the last thing that was on my mind [when I started in the minors in early July]. It was definitely a great experience. Being a part of that was awesome. To make my debut in Yankee Stadium and getting to face all the big guys on their team. It was a different feeling when [Jeter] got to the plate. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. It’s kind of hard not to hear in a place like that. That was the only time I heard the fans when they called his name out. That felt awesome. Just getting to face him is definitely honor and striking him out made the debut a little bit sweeter.”

Finnegan pitched a perfect seventh, getting Martin Prado to fly out to center, Mark Teixeira to ground out to third and Carlos Beltran to ground out to the mound.

“I thought he was great,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “To make his major league debut in Yankee Stadium ... his stuff was good, he threw strikes and he wasn’t overwhelmed.”

Finnegan, the Royals’ first-round pick and 17th pick overall in the June major league draft, had the two balls he recorded his strikeouts with him at his locker in the clubhouse after the game. They’ll go back with his mom, who flew in from Texas to attend the Yankees series. He credited the deep breaths on the mound that he learned while at TCU for helping calm his nerves.

“I’ve done that for the past four years and it’s always helped me out,” he said. “I just looked at it the way I did in college. Of course, there’s bigger names and more people in the stands but it’s still baseball.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2014 at 10:07 PM with the headline "Former TCU ace makes striking debut for Royals."