The St. Louis Cardinals' longtime top prospect, 21-year-old starting pitcher Shelby Miller, made his Major League debut Wednesday, throwing two scoreless innings and striking out four in relief of Adam Wainwright in the Cardinals' afternoon game against the New York Mets. Flashing a surprisingly sedate arsenal—a low-90s fastball that only once touched 95 and a changeup, mostly—Miller showed off the startling command that turned his season around in Memphis, throwing 21 strikes in just 29 pitches and striking out the side in his second inning of work.
The velocity wasn't where it used to be, but the movement definitely was—see in particular the Carpenter-ian 92 mph fastball he used to strike out Ruben Tejada in the seventh, which ran off the middle of the plate onto the corner for a called third strike.
Two scoreless innings into his career Shelby Miller remains as much a question mark as he has all season. But he answered at least one question—if you were wondering where that 50-to-1 strikeout-to-walk run at the end of his Pacific Coast League career came from, he showed that form Wednesday afternoon.