'Calm in a crucial spot': Pirates reliever Ryder Ryan impressive in earning 1st MLB win

After making the Opening Day roster, Ryder Ryan was excited to make his Pittsburgh Pirates debut. Instead, he watched and waited through a 12-inning game in the season opener at Miami.

When Ryan got the bullpen call in the fifth inning against the Marlins on Friday night, the 28-year-old right-hander was raring and ready to go.

Ryan allowed one hit and recorded two strikeouts in 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief to earn the first win of his major-league career in the Pirates’ 7-2 victory over the Marlins at loanDepot park.

“It feels great,” Ryan said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “It’s awesome to get your first win out of the way.”

RHP Ryder Ryan recorded his first @MLB win after pitching 1.2 scoreless innings tonight to help the @Pirates win.#LetsGoBucs    pic.twitter.com/4PsOD2UN23

— Pittsburgh Pirates Player Development Report (@PGHplayerDev) March 30, 2024

The Pirates were leading 4-1 in the fifth inning when Ryan inherited runners on first and third with one out after Pirates starter Martin Perez gave up a double to Josh Bell, and Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes made an errant throw to first.

That didn’t seem to affect Ryan, who struck out Bryan De La Cruz with a 2-2 sinker on the inside corner then fanned Jazz Chisholm Jr. with a 95 mph four-seam fastball to escape the jam, celebrating by pumping his fists while walking off the mound. In the sixth, Ryan gave up a leadoff single to Tim Anderson but got Avisail Garcia to hit into a 6-4-3 double play and Jonah Bride to ground out to third.

“He came in and did exactly what we needed him to do,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He put the ball on the ground and ended up getting two punchouts. For a guy that’s only had one other big-league appearance, he looked calm in a crucial spot.”

That made Ryan’s performance even more remarkable. He made his major-league debut for the Seattle Mariners on Aug. 11, recording two strikeouts and allowing one walk in the eighth inning of a 9-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles.

Ryan signed a minor-league contract with the Pirates and went to spring training as a nonroster invitee. The 6-foot-2, 205-pounder had 10 strikeouts against four walks in eight Grapefruit League appearances, holding hitters to a .194 batting average. When setup man Colin Holderman lost 15 pounds because of an illness, the Pirates placed him on the 15-day injured list and kept Ryan.

“We like the sinker. That’s the thing,” Shelton told SNP during an in-game interview Monday. “We wanted a sinker guy in our bullpen, and Ryder has done that. He has that sneaky ability to really be effective. He kind of just went under the radar, threw in eight games and really did a nice job.”

Shelton said his conversation informing Ryan that he’d made the team “was one of the cooler ones” because of his reaction. Shelton said he thought Ryan might have been expecting bad news.

“You could see the emotion there. That hit me a little bit,” Shelton said. “I think he was expecting the next part of the conversation, something like, ‘During the year, you’re going to help us.’ I was like, ‘Hey, you made the team.’ The first time you hear that, all the hard work, thinking about his wife and kids, the family. It was emotional for him, and it made me emotional.”

When it came to his pitching debut for the Pirates, Ryan was calm, cool and collected. He faced five batters and was efficient in throwing 18 of his 22 pitches for strikes. He mixed his sinker and slider to get nine foul balls, six called strikes and whiffs and three balls put in play. Shelton noted how Ryan played his sinker off his slider to get some “unorthodox swings” from Marlins hitters.

“My heart rate in the first one was high,” Ryan said of his MLB debut. “This one was a little better. … It felt great. I went out there and did my thing, just throw the ball in the strike zone.”

Josh Fleming followed with a three-inning save, and Ryan got his long-awaited first big-league win. A 30th-round draft pick by Cleveland in 2016 out of North Carolina, where he played mostly first and third base, Ryan was traded twice and spent most of his career in the minors.

He was dealt to the New York Mets for Jay Bruce in August 2017 and to the Texas Rangers as the player to be named later to complete the Todd Frazier trade. Ryan signed a minor-league contract with the Mariners in 2022 before joining the Pirates as a longshot.

“It’s been great. It’s been the experience of a lifetime,” Ryan said. “I’ve been working hard for this opportunity. It came, so I’m excited to get going.”