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Houston Astros fans held their collective breath as Lance McCullers exited his start early with elbow discomfort. McCullers departure opened the door for recently called up Joe Musgrove.
Musgrove entered the game in the fifth inning with two outs. He had to warm up for his first major league outing without having thrown a warm-up pitch and Musgrove had to warm on the mound on the diamond instead of the bullpen because of the injury -- talk about going straight into the fire.
Musgrove wasn't phased, he struck out Edwin Encarnacion to end the inning.
Musgrove finished the night with eight strikeouts over 4 1/3 innings. The strikeouts included big bats like Michael Saunders, Josh Donaldson, and Encarnacion twice.
Musgrove was historically good on Tuesday:
Joe Musgrove now has a franchise-record eight strikeouts for a pitcher making his debut as a reliever.
— Jordan Ray (@JordanLRay) August 3, 2016
Musgrove's 8 Ks also ties a Major League record.
— Jordan Ray (@JordanLRay) August 3, 2016
Musgrove, 23, was The Crawfish Boxes' 4th best prospect overall at the start of the 2016 season. Musgrove was 7-4 with a 2.74 ERA in 16 games (14 starts) between Double-A and Triple-A in 2016. He has struck out 87 and walked 10 in 85 1/3 innings.