Aussie Bidois' debut makes Bucs history ... and he sees Mom for 1st time in 2 years

PITTSBURGH -- The game had been over for nearly a half-hour. Yet while some of his teammates had already showered and left the clubhouse, Brandan Bidois was still in full uniform.

Who could blame Bidois for not wanting Wednesday night to end? The rookie reliever not only made his Major League debut, but he also became the first Australian to play for the Pirates.

While the Pirates lost, 10-4, to the Rockies at PNC Park, it was hard for Bidois to conceal a smile after pitching one inning and allowing one run.

“It was super special,” Bidois said. “Throughout the game, we had a lot of phone calls to the bullpen, and every time your heart just kind of drops and sinks out of your stomach. But nah, it was great. Obviously, not the result the team wanted.

“Going out there, I was just concerned about throwing strikes, filling up the zone, giving us a chance, and I think I did a pretty good job of that. I was tense. I'm going to come back, and I'm going to go out there and do the same thing again for a different result."

Bidois came on to start the eighth inning with the Pirates trailing, 6-4, and quickly got his welcome to the big leagues moment when Mickey Moniak hit a leadoff double. Moniak advanced to third on Tyler Freeman’s sacrifice bunt, but he was picked off by catcher Henry Davis.

Yet just when Bidois was positioned to pitch a scoreless inning, fellow rookie TJ Rumfield belted a home run to right-center field to make it a three-run game. Bidois bounced back and got Troy Johnston to fly out and end the inning.

Pirates manager Don Kelly liked what he saw from Bidois in his debut.

“I thought he threw the ball well,” Kelly said. “That's a really tough lane to roll into -- 2-3-4 [in the lineup] with Moniak and Rumfield, the way they're swinging it. But he's got really good stuff, and I think that we saw what he's capable of doing: throwing in the upper-90s, and that slider is really legit.”

While Bidois tried to focus strictly on pitching, he admitted to peering into the stands to find his mother, who had made a 24-hour trip from Brisbane to Pittsburgh. Bidois now stays in the United States year-round and hadn’t seen her in over two years.

“It's hard with 24-hour notice going to the big leagues when you're living on the other side of the world,” Bidois said. “You just have to scramble. It was a special moment to be able to be on the field with her [after the game].”

The Pirates signed Bidois as an international free agent in 2019, but he didn’t make his mark until last season when he won the Kent Tekulve Relief Pitcher of the Year Award for the best Minor League reliever in the organization. Pitching at all four full-season levels, Bidois was 8-0 with a 0.74 ERA and seven saves in 40 games, while remarkably retiring 64 batters in a row at one point.

Bidois, 24, was placed on the 40-man roster last November to be protected in the Rule 5 Draft. That firmly placed Bidois on the Pirates’ radar, and it was part of why they recalled him on Tuesday from Triple-A Indianapolis despite his 7.20 ERA in 15 games.

"Especially [being the] first Australian to play for the Pirates, what he's gone through, the season that he had last year was really, really impressive,” Kelly said of the specialness of Bidois’ debut. “You've got to see why tonight with the elite stuff that he's got. Excited to see him get some more opportunities."