Pittsburgh Pirates righty Jameson Taillon once seemed destined for a meteoric rise to major league excellence, but after a Tommy John detour ate up two full seasons of development, there was some fear his massive talent upside would never quite blossom.

Taillon's first start of 2017 should at least temporarily put those fears to rest, as the 25-year-old hurler certainly looked like an ace in waiting when he shut down the potent (albeit Mookie Betts-less) Red Sox lineup on Wednesday.

During that start, Taillon flashed a mile-per-hour bump on both his changeup and two-seam fastball, with the latter generating a 9.1 percent swinging-strike rate across a 44-pitch sample, per Fangraphs Pitchf/x. These whiff-rate gains, if sustained over the course of the season, could allow Taillon to build on last year's 7.36 strikeout-per-nine (K/9).

That modest strikeout pace left fantasy owners pining for Taillon's once-mighty pedigree, but if the the velocity spikes evidenced early in 2017 can push the young righty closer to the 9.00 K/9 that he flashed in the high minors, the Pittsburgh hurler could very well prove himself to be a top-20 fantasy starter by year's end, health willing.