Antoine Kelly Cubs Debut: Des Plaines Native’s Long Road

Maine East High School has been open for more than a century. Until Friday afternoon, it had never produced a major league baseball player.

Antoine Kelly changed that about 20 miles from campus. The left-hander, born in Chicago and raised in Des Plaines, walked out of the Cubs bullpen at Wrigley Field in the eighth inning against the Yankees and threw 1.1 scoreless innings in his Major League debut — the first Maine East graduate ever to reach the majors, per Journal & Topics.

It took him seven years, two drafts and five organizations.

How did Antoine Kelly do in his MLB debut?

He entered with two outs in the eighth and runners on first and second, and the first batter of his major league career was Ben Rice — the Yankees’ All-Star designated hitter, hitting .269 with 31 home runs and a 156 OPS+, the best bat in their lineup this season.

It took seven pitches. Sinker at 96.6 for a ball. Sinker at 96 for a called strike. Slider fouled off. Slider in the dirt. A 96.8 sinker fouled. Another slider fouled. Then an 88.6 mph slider that Rice swung through. First career strikeout, both runners stranded, inning over.

The ninth was less tidy. Ryan McMahon hit a slider 97 mph on the ground and Nico Hoerner dove to reach it. Jasson Domínguez walked on five pitches, four of them out of the zone. Then Trent Grisham hit a four-seamer 101.8 mph off the bat, straight into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Final line: 1.1 innings, no hits, no runs, one walk, one strikeout, 18 pitches, four batters faced. Two balls struck harder than 97 mph that found gloves. He sat 94.8 to 97.1 with the sinker and ran the slider from 77 to 89.

What Craig Counsell said

“I thought Antoine was great today,” Counsell said afterward. “I mean, that’s a difficult situation to make your debut in. You’re facing one of the best hitters in baseball this year, and he made some great pitches and gave us two more chances to really tie the game, and so hats off to him.”

There was not much else to talk about. The Cubs were shut out on five hits and did not draw a walk. They went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. Will Warren struck out seven over 6.2 innings on 88 pitches, Paul Blackburn bridged it, and David Bednar closed for his 23rd save.

Shota Imanaga took the loss after 6.2 innings, undone by two solo home runs — Amed Rosario in the fourth and Spencer Jones in the fifth, both with two outs. Yankees 2, Cubs 0, in front of 40,129.

The long way around

San Diego drafted Kelly in the 13th round in 2018, out of Maine East. He did not sign. He went to Wabash Valley College in Mount Carmel instead, and Milwaukee took him in the second round the following June.

Then the tour started. The Brewers traded him to Texas for Matt Bush. The Rangers put him on their 40-man roster and never called him up. Colorado claimed him off waivers in 2024. He signed with the Dodgers as a free agent last winter and opened 2026 at Triple-A Oklahoma City. In early June the Cubs acquired him for cash. He rode the taxi squad for a few days in late June, then went back to Iowa.

Along the way: the Arizona League Brewers, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, the Carolina Mudcats, the Frisco RoughRiders, the Round Rock Express, the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Oklahoma City Comets and the Iowa Cubs. He made the Futures Game in 2022. He finishes his minor league career at 11-17 with a 4.66 ERA, 15 saves, 413 strikeouts and 207 walks across 192 games and 322.2 innings.

Those 207 walks are the whole story of why this took so long.

What changed

Kelly has never had trouble missing bats — better than 11 strikeouts per nine across seven minor league seasons. The command came and went. He walked 8.8 per nine in 2021 and 11.1 in 2024. Earlier this year at Oklahoma City he walked 19 in 21 innings while posting a 5.14 ERA.

Since the trade to Chicago, that rate is 3.3. In 13 appearances at Triple-A Iowa he had a 2.79 ERA with 22 strikeouts against seven walks in 19.1 innings — a 3.14 strikeout-to-walk ratio, the best full-season mark of his career above rookie ball.

The stuff was never in question. He leans on a slider, throwing it 39 percent of the time this season, behind a four-seamer in the upper 90s and a sinker that sits above 95.

Why now

Kelly, who wears No. 62, took the roster spot of Gavin Hollowell, placed on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation after posting a 2.51 ERA in 14 outings.

He is the 35th different pitcher the Cubs have used this season. The injured list includes Daniel Palencia, Hunter Harvey, Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, Riley Martin, Ethan Roberts, Ben Brown, Edward Cabrera, Cade Horton, Justin Steele, Porter Hodge and Shelby Miller.

Per Baseball Reference, Kelly is the 2,304th player to appear for the Cubs in 150 years — more than any other franchise in baseball has used.

Cubs vs. Yankees: how to watch the rest of the series

• Sat, Aug 1 — Yankees at Cubs, Wrigley Field, 7:15 p.m. ET
• Sun, Aug 2 — Yankees at Cubs, Wrigley Field, 2:20 p.m. ET

Both clubs are 62-48. New York leads the series 1-0.

Source: Craig Counsell postgame, MLB.com — https://www.mlb.com/cubs/video/craig-counsell-talks-loss-antoine-kelly-s-debut