Right-handed reliever Carlos Vargas made his Major League Baseball debut during a game in which his team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, faced the Los Angeles Dodgers, on Opening Day of the 2023 season.
Vargas, 23, became the first player born in the Dominican Republic to debut in the current Major League Baseball contest and number 885 in history, when he took the mound with the 7-2 game in favor of the Los Angeles team.
The Moca native took the ball in the seventh inning of the game, substituting for right-handed reliever Kyle Nelson, with two outs and struck out shortstop Miguel Vargas with three pitches. The right-hander is 6-foot-4 and weighs 240 pounds. He transferred from the Cleveland Guardians in 2022, the year in which he played with the Columbus Clippers, Triple-A branch of said organization and his fastball was clocked at 99 miles per hour, by then being the number 24 prospect in the league. franchise.
The right-hander signed as an international free agent for $275,000, the highest signing bonus of Cleveland’s 2016 class. He didn’t make his professional debut until 2018 in the Arizona Rookie League, after missing 2017 with a strained elbow. In 2019 he pitched for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a college team.
After the 2020 minor league season was canceled and the shortened MLB campaign ended, he was added to the Guardians’ 40-man roster despite never pitching in a full minor league season to be protected from the Draft. of Rule 5.