Toms River North's Marinaccio Makes New York Yankees Debut

NEW YORK, NY — Toms River native Ron Marinaccio made his Major League Baseball debut Saturday and helped the New York Yankees chalk up their second victory of the 2022 baseball season in the process.

Marinaccio, a right-handed pitcher and a 2013 graduate of Toms River High School North, was called up to the Yankees from the Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Raiders in November, according to his player profile on MLB.com.

The Yankees announced Tuesday that Marinaccio would be a relief pitcher on the roster for the series against the Boston Red Sox, Shore Sports Network reported, and on Saturday it was his name that manager Aaron Boone called in the fourth inning to relieve starter Luis Severino, ESPN.com reported.

With the Yankees trailing 2-0 and Alex Verdugo on first, Marinaccio came on and produced a scoreless inning, striking out two after giving up a walk. He recorded his first major league strikeout on seven pitches to Boston's Bobby Dalbec, who went down swinging at a changeup. He then got Jackie Bradley Jr. to ground into a fielder's choice, and struck out Christian Vazquez looking.

YES Network heralded his Toms River roots with a tweet saying "From Toms River, NJ - growing up a die hard Yankees fan - now pitching vs. the Red Sox. What a way to make your MLB debut, Ron Marinaccio! Welcome to the big leagues!"

"There was a ton of adrenaline," Marinaccio told MLB.com after the game. "That’s as special of a moment as I could have come into — Yankees-Red Sox. I’m kind of glad I got to kill two birds with one stone. I got the debut out of the way and got an exciting situation to pitch in as well."

The Yankees tied the game in the bottom of the fourth on a two-run home run by Anthony Rizzo, and pushed the winning runs across in the bottom of the sixth inning on a two-run home run by Giancarlo Stanton.

"Growing up, you envision this in the backyard your whole life," Marinaccio told MLB.com. "For me, I really started thinking about it probably toward the end of last year, and then getting added to the [40-man] roster. So I had a long time to think about it, and a lot of anticipation. It lived up to it, definitely."