Westfield’s Ryan Pepiot made his Major League Baseball debut on Wednesday, pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Pepiot was named as the starting pitcher for the Dodgers in their game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He got the call on Tuesday and was soon on a plane to the Pirates’ PNC park. Pepiot had a solid debut, going three innings. He allowed one hit and five walks, tossing three strikeouts.
“It was exciting, a lot of nerves,” Pepiot said in an interview on mlb.com/dodgers after the game. “Happy to be out there. But I didn’t make some of the pitches I wanted to, got myself in some traffic. But when I needed to, I was able to make some pitches to limit the damage, just calming myself down and realizing, ‘all right, this is the situation, do what you can do to limit it as much as possible.”
Pepiot, 24, was a star at Westfield and at Butler University before making his way into the pros. He had been playing for the Dodgers’ AAA affiliate in Oklahoma City, where he had a 2-0 record before getting the call to the big league.
