By Harrison Baxter

A post on the social media platform X from the @Rockies account on Aug. 26.

His career started on the Cub baseball fields at Collegiate in the spring of 2012. On Saturday, August 26, 2023, he found himself on the mound at Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles’ stadium, for his Major League Baseball debut, pitching relief for the Colorado Rockies. 

Evan Justice (‘17) was a star on Sam Newell Field for the Cougars in his time at Collegiate, and after playing for North Carolina State University as a left-handed pitcher, he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2021 MLB draft by the Rockies organization.

Justice’s time in the Rockies minor league organization lasted two years before his big league debut. He missed all of the 2022 season, his first year in professional ball, with a shoulder strain, so 2023 was essentially his rookie year. He appeared in 41 minor league games before being called up to the majors. 

In the August 26 game in Baltimore, he entered in the bottom of the seventh inning and worked through it, giving up one hit while striking out two Orioles batters, including 2023 American League All Star Adley Rutschman. The other strikeout was three pitches, without throwing an offspeed pitch, in which Justice seemed to dominate rising star Gunnar Henderson. Justice featured a fastball that topped out at 96 miles per hour, a sinker that he has used to overpower hitters, and he combined the two with a slider to get through the Orioles’ batters. 

Justice’s appearance at Camden Yards was the culmination of his pitching journey throughout the minor leagues. Justice started the 2023 season in High A with the Spokane Indians. He posted a 0.00 Earned Run Average (ERA) through 10 appearances with the Indians before being called up to the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats. There Justice found similar success, with a 5-0 record for that team. He threw 16 innings before being once again called up to the Albuquerque Isotopes this summer. In New Mexico, Justice put up an astounding 13.2 strikeouts per nine innings, which is almost five strikeouts more than the MLB average in 2022. 

Justice pitching in high school. Photo courtesy of  The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

His success at Collegiate was capped by his team’s state championship in 2016, in which Justice played a pivotal role. Although he continued in college exclusively as a pitcher, it is noteworthy to point out his abilities at the plate for the Cougars. While earning Richmond’s All-Metro Player of the Year honors in 2017, Justice posted a .504 batting average and showed off power with nine home runs as well. Justice’s four years at NC State included a trip to the 2021 College World Series, where the Wolfpack beat the then number-one ranked team in the nation, Arkansas, in a best-of-three game series. Although their journey in the CWS was cut short due to the team’s COVID-19 outbreak, Justice’s role as a reliable closer on the successful 2021 Wolfpack baseball team led to him being drafted after the season’s end. The Rockies missed the playoffs this season, but having younger players such as Justice getting their feet wet in the big leagues should prove to be beneficial for their 2024 campaign.