Kenta Maeda, Jose De Leon make their marks in Cactus League debuts

A pair of Dodgers pitchers made their Cactus League debuts on Saturday against the Diamondbacks, and both Kenta Maeda and Jose De Leon made strong first impressions against the Diamondbacks.

Maeda pitched a pair of scoreless innings, allowing only one double while striking out two. He needed just 28 pitches, then threw some more in the bullpen after his outing.

After catching Kenta Maeda's 1st game action, #Dodgers Yasmani Grandal called it "pretty dominant," said Maeda's command was impressive

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) March 5, 2016

The game, which was televised live at 5 a.m. in Japan, not that Maeda would have watched.

Kenta Maeda said he would not have woken up at 5 a.m. in Japan to watch himself pitch. He gets spring training.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) March 5, 2016

De Leon, who dealt with a minor ankle tweak in the last few days, pitched a pair of scoreless innings of his own, putting up zeroes in the sixth and seventh innings. He allowed a double to his first batter, then later saw the runner advance to third base on an errant pickoff throw, but thanks to three strikeouts in the inning De Leon held Arizona scoreless.

In his second inning of work, De Leon allowed a single and racked up one more strikeout, then ended his outing with a 6-4-3 double play. De Leon led Dodgers minor leaguers with 163 strikeouts in 2015, in 114⅓ innings.

In addition to De Leon's errant pickoff, Chris Hatcher also made an error on a pickoff throw on Saturday, the third by a Dodgers pitcher in three games. Yimi Garcia made the other error, on Thursday.