By Jon Cooper
FOXSportsSouth.com
March 9, 2011
There has never been a Major League game started by a Colombian-born pitcher. Julio Teheran has a shot to be the first.
Teheran is a 20-year-old right-hander who, along with fellow young guns Arodys Vizcaino and Randall Delgado, has helped created big-league buzz around Atlanta Braves 2011 Spring Training.
He's a dark-horse candidate to go north with the Major League club, but even if he goes another 25 miles or so north, to the Braves' Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett, the consensus about the 20-year-old right-hander from Cartagena is that he will start in the Majors. It's just a matter of when.
"We know he's a very talented young guy," said Braves General Manager Frank Wren. "He's mid-90s [on his fastball], he can get it up to 96, 97 miles an hour. He has a great change-up. He's always had a great feel for the change-up and breaking ball and he has command of all those pitches and he has a real good idea of what he wants to do on the mound. He's a very good athlete. There's a charisma, just about the way he goes about his business that draws you to him."
"His physical gifts. The ball explodes out of his hand," added Marty Reed, Gwinnett's first-year pitching coach, and Teheran's pitching coach at the end of last year at Mississippi (Double-A). "The thing that's the most interesting about him is that at a young age he commands the fastball, has a great understanding of the game. Now it's just a matter of him continuing to get experience and execute pitches. If he does that he's going to have a heck of a career."
Teheran is in his first Spring Training, having only been in the organization since 2008. He jumped from Danville (Rookie) to Rome (A) in 2009, then hopped two (Rome, Myrtle Beach (High-A) and Mississippi (Double-A) in 2010. Last season, finished a combined 9-8 and a 2.59 ERA (41 earned runs in 142 2/3 innings), surrendering 108 hits, while striking out 159 and pitching to a 4:1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio (he walked 40 hitters) and 1.037 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched).
Teheran, who is rated the top-rated pitching prospect for 2011 by Baseball America, and its fifth overall prospect, looked solid in his first outing on Monday. He pitched in relief
