DUNEDIN, Fla.– Russell Martin and Marcus Stroman are still getting used to working together, but their first game action went according to plan in a split-squad contest the Toronto Blue Jays lost 1-0 to the Houston Astros.
Stroman pitched three shutout innings, striking out three while walking two and allowing two hits. He broke out his broad arsenal, a mix his battery-mate described as electric.
“All of his pitches are good. He’s got a good curveball, a good slider, a good changeup, good velocity. He’s going to be good,” Martin said, before quickly re-phrasing. “He is good.”
Stroman says it’s going to take a few outings before he and Martin are fully comfortable with one another. Considering the right-hander regularly uses a rotation of five or six pitches, one start isn’t enough.
“I’m trying to get to learn him as much as possible and he’s trying to learn me,” Stroman said. “It’s not an easy process, I throw a pretty good amount of pitches so getting on the same page is going to take a bit of time. It was pretty good for the first time, him catching me in a game, we were pretty much on the same page. [I’m] just looking forward to developing that relationship and getting to the point where we’re in sync with each other.”
The pair will confer Monday or Tuesday to review the start and ways of improving the next time out. While Stroman walked two and hit a batter, he felt his command was ‘pretty good’ and his catcher agreed.
“He really wasn’t erratic out there,” Martin said. “I feel like he was under control. And if he was missing, he was missing by just a little bit”
Stroman showed excellent command as a rookie in 2014, when he posted a 3.65 ERA in 130.2 innings with just 28 walks allowed. Those results give him a strong campaign to build off of, and he expects Martin’s skills and experience will lead to more success in 2015.
“You want that bulldog mentality back there and he has confidence in me to execute every single pitch,” Stroman said of Martin. “Any time you know your backstop has that confidence in you it kind of gives you a little more motivation to get the pitch in there and get the job done.”
NOTES: Dayan Viciedo was scratched from Monday’s game with a right foot infection … Martin threw out Robbie Grossman trying to steal second base. “If there are guys that are getting on base, that’s part of the game and it’s definitely good to work on that as well,” he said … Stroman doesn’t want to rely too much on his sinker as a pitch to bail him out of jams.