Saturday at T-Mobile Park was Kade Anderson Day as the former LSU baseball ace made his much-anticipated Major League debut. While Anderson ultimately didn't factor into the decision, the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball pitched well as Seattle rallied to beat the Chicago Cubs 5-4 in walk-off fashion.
Anderson pitched 5.2 innings and surrendered three runs. He struck out five Cubs while walking two and threw 53 of his 81 pitches for strikes. On his very first pitch as a big leaguer, Anderson got NL MVP favorite Pete Crow-Armstrong to pop out to shortstop; Anderson then notched his first career strikeout at the expense of former Tiger shortstop Alex Bregman.
Anderson got through Chicago's lineup twice without much trouble, though it could have
been worse had Randy Arozarena not robbed a home run away from Miguel Amaya in the third. Through the first four innings, Anderson only allowed one hit and walked another, but the fifth is when he faced his first bit of adversity as a Mariner. Anderson walked Tyrone Taylor to lead off the fifth, and then with runners on the corners and nobody out, Kevin Alcantara hit a sacrifice fly to right field to tie the game 1-1. But Anderson then induced a slick 5-4-3 double play to end the fifth inning and keep the tie intact.
Despite facing the lineup twice, Seattle manager Dan Wilson trusted Anderson enough to send him out to face the top of Chicago's order a third time, and this time around the Cubs gave Anderson his welcome-to-the-show moment. Pete Crow-Armstrong led off the inning with a towering double that just missed being a home run by inches. After erasing Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki with another double play, Alex Bregman paid Anderson back with a game-tying solo home run, and Michael Busch followed with a solo shot of his own to give Chicago a 3-2 lead.
Anderson was pulled from the game after the back-to-back home runs but was treated to a standing ovation from the 45,000 fans at T-Mobile Park, which included some 20 friends and family members of his. The Mariners fans ended up going home happy thanks to Arozarena hitting a walk-off two-run homer to give Seattle a 5-4 win.
The win improved Seattle to 62-68 and moved the Mariners to three games behind Houston in the AL West and two back of Minnesota for the third and final AL Wild Card.
This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: How former LSU baseball ace Kade Anderson fared in MLB debut
