DUNEDIN, Fla. – The Blue Jays got some tremendous pitching on Wednesday as nine different hurlers stymied the Pirates, combining to allow no earned runs on just four hits as Toronto evened its spring record at 1-1.
The lone Pirates run scored as a result of a two-base throwing error by Munenori Kawasaki that was followed by a Rob Rasmussen wild pitch, but that was the only blemish – a nice bounce back for a pitching staff that allowed eight runs on 14 hits in Tuesday’s spring opener (not that anyone pitched in both games).
Here are some things I liked and some things I didn’t about the Blue Jays’ 4-1 win at Bradenton:
THE GOOD
Several bullpen performances: After Rasmussen got the final out of the second inning, seven relievers followed to throw seven innings of two-hit shutout. The top performances came from Todd Redmond, Scott Barnes and Matt West. Redmond needed only five pitches to throw a perfect third inning, Barnes worked a perfect fourth with a couple of shallow fly balls and a three-pitch strikeout of the dangerous Pedro Alvarez and West came out throwing smoke, working a 1-2-3 ninth with a couple of strikeouts to earn the save.
Redmond has a spot on the team pretty much set, but Barnes and West are both people on whom to keep an eye as the spring progresses. Barnes isn’t your typical lefty slop-baller — he can get into the low-90s — and he has some deception in his herky-jerky delivery. He won’t challenge for a high-leverage job, but he’s a serviceable guy who will likely see some big-league time this year.
As for West, he could be this spring’s Neil Wagner. A converted third baseman whose eyesight is so bad that he got hit in the face twice as a hitter because he couldn’t see the ball coming at him, West is now recovered from Tommy John surgery and can bring mid-90s or better heat. He’s still learning to pitch, but he could wind up being very, very good as a late-inning short reliever. What the Blue Jays need to do is make sure everybody in the game knows just how bad his vision is, just to make sure no batter is terribly comfortable digging in against him.
Kevin Pillar and Dalton Pompey: The two main combatants for the Blue Jays’ centre field job both followed up strong performances in the Grapefruit League opener with another good game. Pillar was 1-for-4, but his lone hit was a groundball RBI double pulled down the third-base line that broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth. It came on an 0-2 pitch, and he stayed on the ball and hit it hard after fouling off the 0-2 pitch that came before. He also hit another 0-2 pitch hard, in the sixth, but that just resulted in a ground out to short. Pillar’s been an excellent hitter in the minors, but his strong two-strike approach there has yet to translate to the big leagues. If he can be comfortable in deep counts, good things will happen. He also made an incredible, flat-out diving catch in the gap in left-centre, going full-out Superman to rob Brent Morel of an RBI hit and end the fifth.
Pompey had a 2-for-3 day, with an opposite-field double down the left-field line batting left-handed in the first inning, and a hard line single to left-centre batting right-handed in the seventh. He also drew a walk. Both his hits came off very good major-league pitchers in righty Gerrit Cole and lefty Antonio Bastardo. Pompey had some trouble with the sun on Francisco Cervelli’s first-inning liner to left-centre, but recovered and was able to double up Josh Harrison trying to get back to second.
Opportunistic scoring: The Blue Jays scored half their runs without benefit of a hit, twice driving in a runner from third with less than two out with a well-placed ground ball. The first maybe wasn’t something to really love, since Dioner Navarro grounded out to second on a 3-0 pitch, but it did score the run. The second RBI groundout to second came off the bat of Ramon Santiago. The Blue Jays were a top-10 team in striking out last season, and the ability to put the ball in play to score a run without a hit is kind of huge. The Jays didn’t do that enough last season.
THE NOT-SO-GOOD
Chris Colabello: Claimed on waivers from the Twins in December, Colabello was brought in to more than likely go rake in Buffalo and compete for the International League MVP award, but for now he’s still in the mix for the available spot at 1B/DH along with Justin Smoak, Daric Barton and Dayan Viciedo. Colabello was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts, all swinging, and has struck out in four of his five at-bats so far this spring.
Pitchers’ Fielding Practice?: It seems as though all the pitchers do all spring long is take PFP, but Liam Hendriks didn’t put the practice to good use in the eighth inning. With Pedro Florimon on second and one out, Pirates DH Andrew Lambo hit a comebacker to the mound. Hendriks fielded it and saw that Florimon had gone too far off the bag at second and was caught in no-man’s land. He immediately fired the ball to third baseman Mitch Nay – the wrong move, because it allowed Florimon to scamper safely back to second. The play there is to slow everything down and run right at the baserunner, forcing him to choose whether to break for third or head back to second. Either way, he’s going to be meatcake unless somebody throws the ball away. By throwing too soon, before Florimon was far enough off the bag to have no way back, Hendriks made the runner’s mind up for him, and it cost the Blue Jays an out.
Walks: The best way for a reliever to turn what’s left of his manager’s and pitching coach’s hair grey(er) is to come out of the bullpen and not throw strikes. Rasmussen took over for Marcus Stroman with men on second and third and two out in the second inning and wild-pitched a run home in the process of walking the first batter he faced. He retired the next hitter, but damage had been done. Bo Schultz, a righty claimed off waivers from Arizona over the winter, worked the fifth inning and issued back-to-back walks after getting a quick out. Catcher A.J. Jimenez took care of one of the walks by erasing Mel Rojas Jr. as he tried to steal second and Pillar’s amazing catch got Schultz out of it, but two walks in four batters faced do not a good first impression make.
The Blue Jays head down to Sarasota for some nighttime spring baseball on Thursday evening.
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