SARASOTA — Jeremy Jeffress had a chance to solidify his spot in the Blue Jays bullpen with a strong outing against the Baltimore Orioles Wednesday afternoon, but got knocked around and may now be behind the eight-ball in his bid to make the team ahead of Brett Cecil.
The mercurial Jeffress, a righty who has looked untouchable at times this spring, gave up three home runs in the second inning — to J.J. Hardy, Nolan Reimold and Nate McLouth — after struggling through a first inning in which he kept the Orioles off the board but had their batters foul off a bucket of balls to drive his pitch count up.
This comes on the heels of an outing where Jeffress was removed after facing only three hitters, having given up a double and a pair of walks.
Prior to that outing, Jeffress had allowed 11 baserunners over seven spring innings, with ten strikeouts. He’s now allowed 20 baserunners over nine innings, with eleven strikeouts.
His spot, once relatively secure, is now hardly so.
If Casey Janssen is healthy enough to start the season — and he may not be — there’s only one spot available in a bullpen that already has Sergio Santos, Darren Oliver, Steve Delabar, Esmil Rogers and Aaron Loup. That means that Jeffress and Cecil are in competition, and the left-hander has been the much more impressive pitcher lately.
Cecil gets his next chance Thursday afternoon in Port Charlotte. He will face the Rays and is scheduled to throw three innings — the same as Jeffress had been scheduled to throw against the Orioles, but Jeffress only made it through two.
Should Janssen have to start the season on the disabled list, the decision will merely be pushed back a week or two, but by then it might be easier to sneak either Cecil or Jeffress through waivers, since teams will be set by then.
The thing about Jeffress is that incredibly attractive right arm of his. He can light up a radar gun — he’s thrown as hard as 101 miles per hour this spring and when he’s on, he simply cannot be hit.
He breezed through 2.1 innings of relief work against the Braves back on Mar. 8, getting a couple of strikeouts on 98 mile-an-hour fastballs on the outside black and allowing only an infield single.
A former first-round pick that has never been able to harness his stuff, he’s the kind of guy who makes scouts drool and front offices hope they can be the ones who can get him to finally throw strikes on a consistent basis. Once this guy gets it, they say, he’ll be an incredibly valuable weapon.
The thing is, he may never get it. Of course, he very well may, and if the Blue Jays let him go by then, they’ll regret it just as much as the Brewers and Royals will as well.
Mickey Storey, who doesn’t have half the stuff Jeffress does, came in to clean up the mess after Jeffress’ second-inning blow-up was followed by Guillermo Moscoso’s ugly Blue Jays debut and restored order by retiring all six Orioles he faced on three grounders, a pop-up and two strikeouts.
Storey’s performance no doubt made a strong impression on John Gibbons, Pete Walker and Pat Hentgen, and they’ll certainly remember when they need some bullpen help during the regular season.
He made his big-league debut with the Houston Astros last year, and posted a WHIP of 1.22 with 34 strikeouts in 30.2 innings. The right-hander held left-handed batters to an otherworldly .167/.231/.222 line.
He’s a guy who will almost definitely be called upon to help the Blue Jays at some point in the season, but he’s not someone who will be given chance after chance as Jeffress will, because his ceiling is so crazy high.
Jeffress still has a week and a half of spring to reverse his current slide, and I’m not sure he has to do much more than show the Blue Jays another glimpse of the possibilities that exist within him to be carried north with the team.
Next up for the Blue Jays is their first visit to Port Charlotte, the spring home of the Tampa Bay Rays, where they’ll face the former Fausto Carmona, now known as Roberto Hernandez. Claudio Vargas will start and is scheduled to throw three innings, as are Ramon Ortiz and Cecil.
Dirk Hayhurst and I will have all the action for you on sportsnet590.ca beginning at 1pm Eastern. Join us, won’t you?