DUNEDIN, Fla. – The start of Grapefruit League play means it’s time to test the roster decisions, projections and theories teams have made, with action on the field quickly separating fact from fiction.
After all, there’s no substitute for results, and no matter how clever or obvious a move looked over the winter, reality is a definitive arbitrator.
Day 1, of course, is not anything to base decisions on, but for teams with multiple moving parts like the Toronto Blue Jays, the body of evidence began piling up in an 8-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates before 4,593 fans at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.
“There were some good things that happened today, overall,” said manager John Gibbons.
Well, after three hours and 17 minutes for a spring game, there had better be, and at minimum there was some fodder to mull over.
Aaron Sanchez, who’ll either be the fifth starter or a high-leverage reliever, pumped some big velocity, was hit and miss with his curveball and ended up with a pitching line (five runs, two earned, on four hits and a walk in 1.1 innings) far uglier than he deserved.
He might have emerged from the first unscathed if home plate umpire James Hoye had given him the call on an 0-2 curve to Gregory Polanco that Russell Martin felt “was there.” Instead it went for a ball, Polanco blooped another curve to centre, Josh Donaldson booted Starling Marte’s chopper and Pedro Alvarez followed with a three-run shot.
“The umpire, it was his first game of the year and (Sanchez) throws a backdoor snapdragon, it kind of froze him a little bit,” Martin said of the pivotal pitch to Polanco. “But he’s got a devastating curveball, the action on it is pretty severe.
“We were really focusing on fastball command, just really attacking the zone which I thought he did really well. He got four, almost five outs in that inning, you know what I mean?”
Sanchez gave up two more runs in the second before pitching coach Pete Walker came to get him, the young right-hander feeling his pitches “were a little bit straighter than I’d like them to be” and happy about everything but the results.
“Being a starter you’ve got to incorporate every single pitch,” Sanchez said of the curveball. “I had a chance to put some guys away, one was a hit, but right where I need to be. It’s the first game of spring training, so just build off that. It can only get better from there.”
Martin flashed some of his trademark defence in the first, but Justin Smoak’s huge wingspan at first base made sure a spectacular play on Sean Rodriguez’s nubber didn’t go to waste, extending off the bag to snare a pretty spin throw.
Maicer Izturis, meanwhile, working his way back from knee surgery, ranged up the middle to grab a Jose Tabata chopper and throw to first for the out, and then went to a pair of 3-2 counts in earning a walk and grounding out to the pitcher.
The 34-year-old’s mobility will be closely monitored after a major knee injury cost him most of last season, and so far at least he’s moving well, a boon with the Blue Jays unsettled at second base.
“I try not to think about my knee, I just tried to make plays, play good defence, work on situations, that’s what I put in my mind. I don’t put in my mind be careful because I just want to go play,” said Izturis.
Belief and trust that he’s physically back to himself is “coming,” he explained. “That was a very serious injury. I went out there and played, and I feel like I need more confidence to feel like I’m 100 percent, but that’s coming by playing, running hard, trying to do all that stuff in the field.”
While second base is one question up the middle, centre field is another, and the two main contenders showed well in this one.
Kevin Pillar hit a two-run homer in the third inning while Dalton Pompey, the prohibitive favourite, immediately followed with a single and a stolen base. Pompey also made a nice catch in left field after the two swapped spots in the outfield, but lost a ball in the sun that cost Steve Delabar a run in the fifth.
Earlier in the day Pompey spoke with guest coach Vernon Wells, who’s in camp for three days in part to work with the Mississauga, Ont., native. The two have some parallels in the position they play and their quick arrival to the big-leagues.
“Just trying to pick his brain about how he prepared and what he did before the games and during the games, what he felt he did best, what he didn’t do best,” Pompey said of their conversation. “He played centre field for such a long time and he was such a great player here, if I can take anything from him, small or big, I’ll do it.”
Delabar, who sat mid-90’s, allowed a run on two hits and a walk but would likely have escaped unscathed had Pompey tracked Alvarez’s gift RBI double. The right-hander is a potential game-changer in the Blue Jays bullpen if he can regain his form from the 2013 season.
“I’m looking to get a little sharper right now with the off-speed stuff, and keep the fastball where it is, down in the zone,” he said. “Maybe throw a little bit better to spots, but keeping it down in the zone is the focus.”
Important to remember is that early in the spring players often focus on one or two areas at a time, and that can make results difficult to assess. Regardless, no conclusions will be drawn for a while yet, but the at least the evaluation process is legitimately underway.