{"id":757979,"date":"2026-07-21T22:57:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/757979\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:57:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:57:33","slug":"khristian-curtis-reacts-after-record-setting-mlb-debut-for-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/757979\/","title":{"rendered":"Khristian Curtis reacts after record-setting MLB debut for Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Khristian Curtis wasn&#8217;t thinking about setting records while making his\u00a0Major League Baseball debut this past weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The Port Neches-Groves graduate simply wanted to pitch &#8220;until they took the ball&#8221; out of his hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Curtis&#8217; case, that meant pitching five innings of shutout ball during his debut Saturday for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was\u00a0the longest scoreless debut for a Pirates pitcher out of the bullpen since 1964.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Curtis was surprised to hear about his piece of Pirates history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s crazy. Did not expect that,&#8221; he said with a smile while speaking to the media postgame.<\/p>\n<p>Curtis doesn&#8217;t usually come out of the bullpen. He&#8217;s been used as a starter throughout his three-year professional career in\u00a0the Pirates organization. Before being called up, Curtis was ranked as the No. 21 prospect in Pittsburgh&#8217;s minor-league system.<\/p>\n<p>Curtis, a 2020 graduate of Port Neches-Grove High School, said his heart was pounding when first taking the mound in Cleveland. About 20 family members watching from the stands were just as nervous.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Curtis struck out the first Guardians batter he faced to settling things down after entering the game in the second inning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We could just breathe, get that one behind us,&#8221; Curtis&#8217; mother Cristy said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/video\/khristian-curtis-parents-on-his-mlb-debut\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">during a family interview<\/a> on the SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>Curtis then navigated five innings without giving up a run. He did well to keep hitters off-balance by landing cutters and sliders for strikes. In total, he pitched the five innings while allowing just two hits and striking out four batters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He knew his family was behind him throughout the debut.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I heard them the whole time&#8230;I couldn&#8217;t do it without them,&#8221; Curtis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite his impressive performance, Curtis was sent back down to Triple-A Indianapolis on Sunday in a roster move. He&#8217;ll now try to find some consistency in the minor leagues, looking to improve on his 5.57 ERA in six games with Triple-A Indianapolis.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing else, the MLB debut served as a confidence boost for Curtis as he moves forward with his professional career.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khristian Curtis wasn&#8217;t thinking about setting records while making his\u00a0Major League Baseball debut this past weekend. The Port&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,538,4,90727],"class_list":["post-757979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-guardians","tag-baseball","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-clevelandguardians","tag-guardians","tag-mlb","tag-sportsdata"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116960443989258911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}