Former Tribe Flamethrower Blake Cederlind Makes MLB Debut

INDIANAPOLIS – After joining the Tribe in late August 2019, right-handed reliever Blake Cederlind was recalled by Pittsburgh and made his MLB debut tonight at Cincinnati. He is the fourth pitcher and sixth member of Indianapolis’ 2019 team to make his debut this season, following pitchers JT Brubaker, Cody Ponce and Brandon Waddell, and infielders Will Craig and Ke’Bryan Hayes.

The 24-year-old made his debut in the sixth inning as he entered in relief of starter Joe Musgrove. He tossed a scoreless inning with two groundouts and a fly ball before exiting the game.

Cederlind began the 2019 season with High-A Bradenton and allowed just one run over 7.2 innings before being promoted to Double-A Altoona. He tossed 12.1 scoreless innings in the month of May with the Curve and continued his dominance with a career-high five-game winning streak in 21 appearances from June 5-Aug. 14. He was promoted to Indianapolis on Aug. 22 and appeared in three games for the Tribe.

The hard-throwing hurler was added to Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster in November and entered the 2020 season as the Pirates’ No. 25 prospect by Baseball America with a well-above-average fastball scouting grade of 70 according to MLB Pipeline. He joined the MLB club for his first big-league spring training and tossed a scoreless 4.2 innings with nine strikeouts. He was then named to the alternate site in Altoona for Summer Camp.

Cederlind was selected by Pittsburgh in the fifth round (165th overall) of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft out of Turlock High School in California.