Rookie Zach Duke with strong debut at home

[redsrbetter]

Duke zips through Phillies for seven zeroes in home debut
Friday, July 08, 2005

By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If Pittsburghers wanted to see what makes Zach Duke special, what has compelled the Pirates' management to rave about him like no other pitching prospect in a decade, the wait was blissfully short.

First home game, first home gem.

In his PNC Park debut, Duke delivered seven scoreless innings in his team's 2-1 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies last night, striking out eight while scattering six hits and walking one.

His manager and teammates, already effusive after a solid major-league debut Saturday in Milwaukee, ratcheted up the praise in correlation with his performance.

"I'm impressed with everything about him," manager Lloyd McClendon said. "I'm a little bubbly, actually, because ... this kid has some great makeup, and he's got the stuff to go with it. That's a pretty darned good combination. That's something to be excited about."

"He's got great poise, man," catcher Humberto Cota said. "It's unbelievable to see a 22-year-old kid out there doing that."

When Duke walked off the field after escaping a jam in the seventh, the crowd of 20,942 gave him a standing ovation, many of them chanting, "Duuuuuuuuuuuuke."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05189/534898.stm

[redsrbetter]

Duke and Perez could be a good 1-2 punch. Should be interesting to see how this young stud turns out. Very nice home debute though!

[Witlon]

I'm glad he's pitching well, like I've said many times, I never was high on him as a spect, but he's proving me wrong nicely.

[The Philly Fanatic]

He showed trmendous poise when outdueling Brett Myers. I think he'll slow down a bit when hitters pick up on his stuff. Even though the sample is much smaller, his MLB K/9 is a considerable amount higher than the one he posted in AAA (while he had a pretty nifty 2.9 some ERA at that.) But at 22 he has shown tremendous poise and should be a quality asset to the Pirates rotation for quite some time.