Although we will probably never know why it took until the 136th game of the 2016 season for Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi to call up 24-year-old right-hander Jose De Leon to the Dodgers, there’s a pretty good chance that those who have followed the Isabel, Puerto Rico native closely throughout his four-year minor league career are saying “I told you so” right about now.

Not only did the Dodgers top-ranked right-handed pitching prospect do a good job in his major league debut on Sunday afternoon in front of 46,441 cheering fans at Dodger Stadium, he was flat out sensational, just as the many longtime Jose De Leon fans knew he would be.

“The line score doesn’t speak to how Jose pitched today,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters after the game. “Obviously the punch outs were great, but throwing strikes and holding base runners – picked a guy off – and even when there was the soft liner, the bunt base hit and the close play by [Travis] Jankowski that got away from him and scored a run, he kept his composure.”

De Leon looked more like a seasoned veteran than a 24-year-old rookie on Sunday afternoon, allowing just four runs on six hits to earn his first major league win. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Punch outs indeed. De Leon recorded nine of them in his six innings of work – one shy of the LA Dodgers record for most strikeouts by a rookie in his major league debut co-held by Kazuhisa Ishii (April 6, 2002) and Pedro Astacio (July 3, 1992). However, De Leon did become the first Dodger to do so (since 1913) without issuing a walk. So efficient was De Leon that Roberts even toyed with the idea of sending him back out to pitch the seventh inning but opted not to with the young right-hander already having thrown 86 pitches (58 for strikes).

“As [the bottom of the fifth] inning developed, we were trying to add on and score runs and with his pitch count down where it was at (71 through five innings), I liked where he was at,” Roberts said. “There was a long layover in the bottom half of that inning but I felt good with him going back out there … and there was a little thought about him going back out there for the seventh but I think that [86] pitches he could have went a little deeper but it wouldn’t have (been) much.

“I felt that he was throwing the ball well. And also, you still want some length from your starter,” added the Dodger skipper.

Did De Leon want to go back out there for the seventh inning?

“Of course!” he said emphatically. “I told [Roberts] ‘I got one more’ but they’ve got their decisions, they had a plan.”

After retiring six of the first eight batters he faced without allowing a run, De Leon allowed a two-run home run to Padres shortstop Yangervis Solarte in the top of the third inning. But the Padres lead was short-lived when De Leon’s (recent) Oklahoma City Dodgers teammate and close friend Yasiel Puig launched a 76-MPH Christian Friedrich hanging curveball into the Left Field Pavilion to give De Leon and the Dodgers a 3-2 lead and eventual 7-4 Dodgers win.

“He called it, he actually called it,” De Leon said of Puig’s home run. “It’s actually like the third time this year that he’s called some shots. It’s amazing.”

As a result, De Leon shared a huge hug with Puig in the Dodgers dugout after his three-run blast.

“That guy has done it so many times that it just cracks me up,” he added.

Jose De Leon and Yasiel Puig share a hug after Puig’s third-inning three-run home run.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But of all the Jose De Leon fans out there, and trust me, there are many, his biggest fan never doubted for one second that Jose was ready for the big leagues or that he was capable of striking out major league hitters … a lot of them.

“Remember, Jose has been a strikeout pitcher all his life,” said Jose M. De Leon, the young right-hander’s father who flew his family in from Puerto Rico for his son’s MLB debut. “But I didn’t expect that; to project that strikeout success that he had before to the big leagues. But nine strikeouts in six innings, I guess he’s going to keep doing what he has been doing all his life. He’s a strikeout pitcher.”

The elder De Leon will be the first to admit that from the time he received word on Friday that his son would be making his MLB debut on Sunday afternoon to the time that he and his family and friends arrived at Dodger Stadium was a bit hectic.

“It was pandemonium because we had just hours to buy the airplane tickets, to make the arrangements for the trip, we had about three or four hours,” said Jose’s father, after the game. “We were going crazy with the anticipation that we were going to Los Angeles to see Jose’s MLB debut. It was incredible. We are super super extra happy.”

De Leon’s father described his trip to Los Angeles from Puerto Rico as “pandemonium.”
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

Although Roberts would not say if De Leon will make another start this season – especially with Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw expected to be activated from the disabled list and pitch this Friday in Miami – it is quite possible that he will immediately become the de facto long reliever down the stretch. But Heaven forbid, should there be yet another injury to a Dodger starter, it is reassuring to know that Jose De Leon – the younger one – is only a few paces away from the mound instead of being a flight from Oklahoma City away.

As for the elder De Leon and the rest of his family, well… that’s another story.