Red Sox Newcomer Makes History In Big League Debut

BOSTON — The Red Sox didn’t have many standout performers in their loss to the San Francisco Giants on Thursday, but Naoyuki Uwasawa sure did turn some heads.

He also missed bats, which seemed to be a foreign concept to the rest of Boston’s pitching staff.

Uwasawa made his big league debut Thursday, and provided some much-needed length on a getaway day at Fenway Park — something Brennan Bernardino, Zack Kelly and Cam Booser all failed to do. Red Sox manager Alex Cora called on Uwasawa in the eighth, and got exactly what he expected out of the 30-year-old.

“He’s a strike-thrower,” Cora told reporters postgame. “He’s got good hump on the fastball. The velocity isn’t — it’s 95 or 96 (mph), but it has 17 inches, 18 inches of break. He’s a big leaguer. He did a good job of keeping the game in check.”

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The Red Sox trailed by two runs when Uwasawa came on, and he retired all six batters he faced to keep them in the game. Boston obviously ended up in the loss column, but in doing so, saw its newest reliever become the first Japanese-born pitcher to ever register two scoreless innings in his debut without allowing a baserunner.

“There obviously was a lot of nerves running through my body,” Uwasawa said postgame, through his translator. “It was great. … I’ve worked with the team on my splitter and I was able to do what we’ve been working on.

“It’s obvious the team is looking for length from me, so every time I go out there I’m going to do my best to get a lot of innings.”

Boston pitching coach Andrew Bailey has been able to find quality innings from just about anyone he gets his hands on, but it’s tough to have a much better debut that Uwasawa.

“It was great,” he said. “It was great.