In his Major League Debut, right-hander Mason Black took the mound at the park he grew up visiting as a kid, facing the team he grew up rooting for, toeing the same rubber as his hero Roy Halladay.
He couldn’t suppress a smirk after throwing his first pitch, recording his first putout on an easy grounder off the bat of Kyle Schwarber as the legion of Black family and friends going beserk in the stands. Against J.T. Realmuto, who signed with the Phillies in 2018 when Black was pitching at nearby Lehigh University, the 24 year old recorded his first strikeout with a knee-high four-seam fastball on the outer third.