McCade Brown Has Ups and Downs in Rockies Debut

How did McCade Brown do in his Colorado Rockies debut.

Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The Colorado Rockies made a surprising decision to promote starting pitcher McCade Brown all the up to The Show from Double-A without him ever throwing a pitch at the Triple-A level.

It was the latest bit of ammunition that detractors of this current regime could point to when it comes to their belief that the organization doesn't know what they're doing. Despite the need for starting pitching after the release of Austin Gomber, fast-tracking the former top 30 prospect at this stage of his development was astonishing.

Add in the fact that Brown was slated to start opposite of pitching phenom and current NL Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes, that was not an easy way to begin his major league journey following his shocking promotion.

But the Rockies handed him the ball on Sunday with the intent on seeing what he could do in the bigs as they search for starting pitchers who can fill out this rotation heading into 2026 after this season has been a disaster on the mound.

McCade Brown Flashed At Times Despite Struggles

Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The 25-year-old finished his debut with four earned runs on five hits in 3 2/3 innings pitched, striking out two while walking three with 75 total pitches thrown.

Those aren't the prettiest numbers to look at on the surface, especially because it gives him an ERA of 9.82. But this wasn't a total flop of a debut for Brown, with him actually flashing some good stuff at times before running into trouble in the fourth inning.

To start, it was three up, three down for Brown in both the first two frames, with the right-hander inducing soft contact for a pop out before striking out the next batter and getting out of the first inning on a ground out.

In the second, he walked the first batter but then induced a ground ball double play to get rid of the traffic on the bases, setting the table for him to create more soft contract with another pop out that got him out of the inning.

While things got a little testy in the third, Brown was able to work around some traffic to keep the game tied at zero, only for the fourth inning to bite him. He gave up a leadoff walk and one-out single, but after getting the second out of the frame, the wheels fell off for the young pitcher, with Brown giving up a three-run homer to center field, then issuing a walk before allowing an RBI double that ended his debut.

Now pitching, #51 McCade Brown!

Welcome to The Show 👏 pic.twitter.com/QBiUrCqvMU

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 24, 2025

Baseball Savant put out his game report, and despite the blow up he had, there were some good things to draw from; mainly the five whiffs he induced on 33 swings with 13 pitches being called for strikes. Seven of the balls hit were considered to be not hit hard. Six of them were hit hard, but three of those were grounders or pop ups.

While that doesn't scream Brown is going to be a shutdown man at the big league level, he was able to produce outs before he went through the batting order for a second time, which suggests he could be effective if he makes some tweaks.

Brown largely used a sinker-slider combination like expected, with 41 of his total pitches being sinkers and 20 of them being sliders. His sinker averaged 94.4 mph and peaked out at 96, a good sign when it comes to the velocity coming from his 6-foot-6 frame.

It will be interesting to see what Colorado does with the youngster going forward, because they could option him back to the minors and have him continue to develop on the farm or they could choose to keep him with the big league roster for the remainder of the season and get reps in The Show.

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