Gavin Geppert

His father had not watched him pitch since he left Colombia at 15. Tonight, at 21, he retired 11 Los Angeles Dodgers in a row. No reliever that young has ever done that in a playoff game. His name is Didier Fuentes and he pitches for the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta was down a game to nothing in the division series, on the road at Dodger Stadium, and manager Walt Weiss had already burned through four pitchers by the sixth inning. So he went and got the 21 year old. Fuentes got the sixth. Then the seventh. Then the eighth. Then two outs in the ninth. Eleven batters. Eleven outs. Not one of them reached base. Then Max Muncy got him with a two-strike, two-out home run to make it 3 to 2, and Raisel Iglesias came in and finished it off. Braves 3, Dodgers 2. The series is tied and it is headed back to Atlanta. Now here is the number. Eleven in a row is the longest streak by a reliever 21 or younger in a postseason game in the history of Major League Baseball. The last pitcher that young to put up a streak like that in any game, regular season included, was Tom Gordon of the Kansas City Royals. April 12, 1989. So go back. Fuentes is from Tolu, a small coastal town in Colombia. Atlanta signed him in January 2022 for $75,000. That is not a typo. Seventy five thousand dollars. He did not crack the top 200 international amateurs signed that year. Three players from that entire signing class have reached the major leagues. He is one of the three. He had left home at 15 to chase it. And his father did not watch him throw a pitch in person again until June 20, 2025, when Didier made his major league debut against the Miami Marlins. Ramon Fuentes flew up from Colombia for it. Three days after his son turned 20. Top of the first inning, two outs, Austin Riley lifted a foul ball into the seats. Ramon caught it. Barehanded. An analyst watching it happen said what everybody was thinking. "There are people that'll tell you about going to big league ball games for 30, 40 years and never getting a foul ball." Be honest about tonight. Atlanta still has to win two more games to advance. Muncy did take him deep. He is 21 years old and this is his first postseason. But a kid left a coastal town in Colombia at 15 for $75,000 and a maybe. His dad flew up to see him pitch in the big leagues, and the first foul ball of the game landed in his bare hands. And tonight that kid walked into Dodger Stadium in October and got eleven of them in a row.