Throughout Spring Training Dylan Dodd has opened eyes and turned heads. Atlanta Braves manager, Brian Snitker, even admitted that Dodd was the guy that surprised him the most during Spring Training.
Dodd’s great spring earned him a spot in the Braves rotation to start the season, and Tuesday night he made his Major League Baseball debut with the Braves. He did not disappoint. The Morning Shift reacted to Dodd’s performance.
The rookie southpaw from Danville, Illinois had a solid debut pitching 5 innings, giving up six hits, only one earned run, striking out three, and not walking a single batter. Mike Johnson loved how Dodd was “peppering the plate” and he also talked about how his game seemed very “vintage” and “sustainable."
“He seems very vintage to me, and obviously we talked about it, he doesn’t throw 100 miles an hour, alright," said Johnson. "But he’s got that nasty changeup that kind of moves away from the right-handed hitters.”
To add to that point, Mike also talked about how Dodd’s pitching style reminds him of how Tom Glavine used to pitch.
“Tom Glavine in that era of pitchers for the Braves was 'hey you’re going to get yourself out, like i’m not going to sit here and try to strike you out. I’m going to have movement inside the zone, I'm going to try to keep you off balance, and I'm going to make you ground into double plays.' And that felt to me like the way he attacked the game,” said Johnson.
Tiffany was especially impressed with Dodd’s performance because of the fact that he performed the way he did in a historic stadium like Busch Stadium with a multitude of family and friends watching.
“The fact that he did it in Busch Stadium against a Cardinals team, you mentioned some of the guys on that roster too," started Blackmon. "Talk about pressure, that’s a lot of pressure, and I think it speaks volumes to him rising to the occasion in his debut at that stadium.”
Beau Morgan originally thought that the reason the Braves had decided to start Jared Shuster in the third game of the season in D.C. against the Nationals, and start Dodd the fifth game of the series in St. Louis, was simply because of Dylan’s family ties to St. Louis. However, after seeing what Dodd did last night, Beau now has a different theory.
“I think it was because they felt that Dodd is stronger and more confident and more major league ready based on what they saw in spring and last night he went out and proved it,” Morgan said.
Beau admits that Shuster pitched well in his start once he calmed down, but points out that Dodd settled in faster than Shuster did.
“He settled in very very quickly and that made me think that they have more trust right now in Dodd and he went out there and proved why they trust him more than Shuster right now,” Morgan said.
Mike said it best to sum it all up.
“He was impressive, man," said Johnson. "It’s going to be a good year for him. I feel like they really have a guy that they can turn to to kind of you know calm things down in that rotation.”
If this is a sign of things to come Mike is absolutely right, and last night was only the beginning to another young Braves pitcher taking the league by storm, and hopefully having a long career with the Atlanta Braves.
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