The baseball fates of the Moran brothers couldn't be more different. Older brother Brian Moran was drafted in the seventh round of the 2009 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners and spent the better part of the next 11 years bouncing around the minors, with brief pitstops for Tommy John surgery and even a stint in the independent Atlantic League. His path has been a winding one, to say the least. Little brother Colin, however, was drafted in 2013 and made his major league debut just three years later before being traded to the Pirates in 2018, where the third baseman has excelled, batting in 77 runs while posting a healthy .790 OPS this season. On Thursday night, however, their journeys finally converged at PNC Park, where Brian, after a decade of near misses and setbacks, finally made his major league debut only to find his little brother waiting for him at the plate.
After falling behind 3-1 in the count to his former wiffle ball nemesis, Brian came roaring back to strike Colin out looking, proving that no matter where life takes you, your older brother is always going to be kick your butt. But while there was certainly an element of sibling rivalry to the at-bat, the whole sequence—the first of its kind since 1900—will go down as one of the feel-good stories of the MLB season, especially for the Moran family who could be seen cheering proudly in the stands as Brian struck out his little bro with some 72-mph filth. Hell, even Colin seemed to get a kick out of it, casting a look at back at the mound as if to say "I should have known it was gonna be that pitch."
As for Brian's reaction to pitching in his first major league game, earning his first major league win, and doing it all against his little brother? Well, it probably goes without saying that he was at a loss for words.
Overall it was an incredible evening for the Moran family and baseball as a whole, but there was one slight downside: Thanksgiving just got a little more awkward.
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