2025 MLB Wild Card Game 2 Winners and Losers

Winner: Chase DeLauter’s MLB Debut

During the broadcast of this game, we were told approximately 573 times that Chase DeLauter was just the sixth player in MLB history to make his MLB debut during the postseason.

It was an understandable and cool point to belabor. Quite the anomaly to turn to a true-blue rookie at the most important point in the season, and a real testament to the woeful state of Cleveland’s outfield (aside from Steven Kwan) over the past six months.

What we weren’t told at any point, however, is how those other five debuts panned out.

As it turns out, every single one of them—Alex Kiriloff, Shane McClanahan and Ryan Weathers in 2020, Adalberto Mondesi in the 2015 World Series and Mark Kiger in 2006—played for the team that lost that game.

But thanks in part to his ginormous outfield assist, DeLauter became the first player to win while making his MLB debut in the postseason.

Loser: Inexperienced Outfield Defense

Not only was DeLauter starting in center while making his MLB debut, but September call-up George Valera was starting in right field, having logged just 32 defensive innings in his big league career.

And on an afternoon with wicked wind gusts and blinding sunshine, that inexperience was painfully put to the test.

It took all of five pitches for a ball to find DeLauter, and he misplayed it, committing an error before his first-ever plate appearance. While it didn’t result in any runs, it did lead to Tanner Bibee having a much higher-stress first inning, which contributed to his inability to survive five innings. DeLauter also had a real adventure of a catch to end the sixth inning.

In the fourth inning, Riley Greene lined what should have been a single to right field, except Valera misplayed it and it skipped to the wall. It wasn’t officially an error because he didn’t even get a glove on the ball, but it was another free base caused by inexperienced defense. This one led to a run—though, DeLauter’s heads up throw to third base to cut down Zach McKinstry kept it from resulting in multiple runs.

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