D-backs’ No. 1 prospect Braden Shipley: Call-up is ‘awesome’

Whenever a team’s No. 1 prospect makes his major league debut, there’s bound to be excitement. In Braden Shipley’s case, much of that excitement was his own.

He debuted on Monday in Milwaukee against the Brewers after posting a 3.70 ERA in 13 starts in Reno this year. In an interview with Bickley & Marotta on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM on Wednesday, Shipley explained his first time out as a big league starter.

“The experience was honestly just, it was awesome,” he said. “Everything that you think of, it came through for me, and it was a day I’ll never forget for sure.”

Shipley went 5.1 innings in the outing, allowing six runs on eight hits and four walks. His team lost 7-2.

“Obviously coming up here, I knew it was going to be tougher competition,” he said. “Guys’ approaches are a little bit better and I think that was evident for me, reflecting on my game. I think it was good for me to go out there and face some adverse situations and put myself in that spot, because those are the type of things I’m going to need to battle through in the future. There was ups and downs about the outing, and I took the positives away and we’ll build off those, and the negative things that happened, I’ll just learn from them.”

Though he didn’t have the greatest debut, the 24-year-old said he had high confidence coming out of his success in Reno. People around him advised that he hang on to what made him so good.

“I think the best advice they told me was just be myself,” he said. “Don’t change what I do, don’t go out there and try to be a pitcher that I’m not. It’s tough too, because facing big league hitters for the first time, you want to go out there and be this hero on the mound. I think maybe that might have crept in a little bit for me, because I wanted to go out there and give the team the best opportunity to win as I could.”

After Milwaukee, the Diamondbacks will travel to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers in a three-game series. Shipley is slated to pitch on Saturday for his second major league appearance.

“I think preparation-wise, I’m going to stick with the same preparation that I’ve been doing all year,” he said. “I think overall it’s just going out there and attacking, using my fastball a little bit more, and getting early contact. I think I went away from that the other night, where that’s kind of my strength is getting early contact groundballs and helping me go deep into the game. I got a couple days here and we’re just going to play around with some things.

“It’s a growing experience for me, and fortunately enough for me, I’m going to be able to go out there on Saturday and do it all over again.”

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