Dusty Baker admitted to feeling “giddy inside.”
That’s how electrifying Johnny Cueto’s major league debut was for the Reds’ first-year manager and most of the nearly 12,000 fans in attendance at Great American Ball Park on April 3, 2008.
Cueto, the 22-year right-hander from the Dominican Republic, captured the imagination of Cincinnati fans with a pitching performance never witnessed in the history of Major League Baseball.
Facing the Arizona Diamondbacks on a dreary, damp Thursday afternoon, Cueto became the first Reds pitcher since at least 1900 to pile up 10 strikeouts in his major league debut and the first in major league history to strike out 10 and not walk anybody in his major league debut.