Gahanna Lincoln graduate Jackson Wolf won his MLB debut Saturday night, pitching five innings in the San Diego Padres’ 14-3 victory at Detroit.
The 6-foot-7, 205-pound left-hander needed only four pitches to retire the Tigers in order in the first. He allowed three earned runs in the second, with two coming after an 84-minute rain delay.
Wolf then tossed three scoreless innings and left the game with the Padres leading 10-3. He threw 45 of 75 pitches for strikes, struck out one, walked one and gave up six hits.
“You’re talking about your first major league start and you have to wait out a rain delay before you can go five innings and get the win,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “He threw about 75 pitches, and it must have felt like 125. That’s more than most guys deal with in their first start, and he got the win.”
Wolf wasn’t concerned about pitching after the rain delay.
“(Padres pitching coach) Ruben (Niebla) was with me the whole time, telling me how other guys stay loose in that situation, and he made it easy,” Wolf said.
San Diego called up Wolf from Double-A San Antonio, where he was 8-8 in 17 starts with a 3.39 ERA. He had 104 strikeouts and 20 walks in 85 innings and was allowing under one baserunner per inning (0.99) while holding hitters to a .208 batting average.
Wolf, 24, graduated from Gahanna in 2017 and then pitched in 50 games at West Virginia, going 12-11 with 205 strikeouts in 208 ⅔ innings. He was selected 129th overall by San Diego in the fourth round of the 2021 MLB draft.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.