Blue Jays top prospect Ricky Tiedemann makes 2023 debut tonight in Double-A

The road to the majors begins tonight for Toronto Blue Jays' top prospect Ricky Tiedemann. The club announced today that Tiedemann has been activated from the injured list and is scheduled to make his first start of the Double-A season for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The standout lefty is lined up to face the Portland Sea Dogs in only his fifth Double-A start. He finished last season by making four starts with the Fisher Cats following his promotion from High-A. In his 11 innings, he struck out 14 and carried a 2.45 ERA and 0.81 WHIP.

Over the course of his first professional season, Tiedemann sported a 2.17 ERA and 0.86 WHIP with an eye-popping 117 strikeouts in only 78.2 innings across three levels. What makes it even more impressive is that he did most of it as a 19-year-old.

In one of the biggest stories from the Jays' camp this spring, Tiedemann made waves after a sparkling Grapefruit League debut. His total domination of the Tigers had fans frothing at the mouth for the 20-year-old to grab the fifth starter's job.

He dispatched the Tigers with relative ease, hitting 99 mph and needing only 12 pitches for a clean 1-2-3 inning, including an impressive strikeout of veteran Javier Báez.

Following a so-so second outing, the reality set in that Tiedemann wouldn't be able to leapfrog both Mitch White and Yusei Kikuchi for the last rotation spot. After he ended up being shut down with a sore shoulder, the team took an (understandably) extremely cautious approach with their young stud. The writing was on the wall that he was headed for the minors to begin the season.

Now that he's fully healthy, the MLB Pipeline No. 29 overall prospect is taking the mound again, and Jays fans can start to dream about a 2023 debut.