Dean Kiekhefer

Position: LHP
Born: 6/7/1989
Height: 6'0
Weight: 175
B/T: L/L
Acquired: Drafted in the 36th round of the 2010 MLB First-Year Player Draft (STL)

Most Recent Stats at Time of Debut
CURRENT SEASON STATS: 1-0 with a 1.35 ERA in 11 games in relief at Memphis (Triple-A), striking out nine without walking a batter and allowing 12 hits in 13.1 IP.

Info & MLB Debut Date
Contract purchased from Memphis May 13 when RHP Seth Maness was sent down.
MLB Debut Date: 5/14/2016

Debut Details
May 14, in a 5-3 loss to the Dodgers. The second of three pitchers, he tossed 1.2 innings, allowing one run on one hit, striking out four without walking a batter. The lone hit and run came on a two-out solo homer by Corey Seager in the seventh inning. Coming on in relief of starter Carlos Martinez to start the sixth inning, Kiekhefer quickly retired the side in order, striking out the first batter he faced, Joc Pedersen, looking at strike three. After Yasiel Puig flied out to right, Enrique Hernandez also struck out looking. In the seventh, Kiekhefer fanned the first two batters — Scott Kazmir looking and Chase Utley swinging — before giving up the bomb to Seager, at which point he was relieved by Seung Hwan Oh.

Player Notes
It was an impressive debut for Kiekhefer, just a few weeks shy of his 27th birthday, even if the hook after the homer seemed like a “what have you done for us lately?” move on paper. In his third season at Memphis, the southpaw has consistently posted pretty eye-opening numbers when it’s come to walks vs. strikeouts, and his early weeks in 2016 with the Redbirds were no exception. Between 2014 and 2015 there, he’d appeared in 90 games, walking 12 batters and fanning 90 in 116 1/3 innings, posting a 2.41 ERA in ’15 and a 2.54 mark in ’14 (the latter mark during a partial season there, since he’d started the summer at Springfield (Double-A)and walked just six while striking out 62 in 71 innings between the two stops). Overall, in six seasons, he’d struck out 255 batters and walked just 47 in 339 innings. So, yeah, basically his big league debut and his early 2016 showing has been vintage Dean Kiekhefer. If you can be vintage anything when you’re 26.