DUNEDIN, Fla. – The Blue Jays took another one on the chin on a chilly afternoon at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, being outscored 7-0 from the seventh inning on and falling to the New York Yankees, who extended their Grapefruit League-leading record to 15-5.
Here are three things that stood out to me about the Blue Jays’ 13th spring loss:
TU HITS
Troy Tulowitzki got off to a slow start this spring, both on the field and on the scoresheet. Held back from action until the Blue Jays had played a week’s worth of Grapefruit League games, the shortstop and clubhouse anchor hit the ground running as far as his always-reliable defence is concerned.
The bat? Not so much. Though it’s spring training, it doesn’t count, and it certainly wasn’t concerning that Tulowitzki didn’t reach base at all in his first 13 trips to the plate, it was nice to see the veteran get off the fake schneid on Thursday against the Yankees.
In his first at-bat, Tulowitzki took Luis Cessa high off the right-field wall for a two-out single that wound up sparking a three-run rally. After a second-inning strikeout, Tulowitzki faced hard-throwing Bryan Mitchell in the fourth inning and was the only Blue Jay to reach against the righty in his first two innings of work. Tulowitzki lined a single right back up the middle for his second hit of the day, and of the spring.
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PERFECTION FROM THE NEW GUYS
The Blue Jays took their time in filling a couple of bullpen roles this off-season, waiting out the market and eventually bringing in lefty J.P. Howell and righty Joe Smith, each on a one-year deal, to work behind relief stalwarts Roberto Osuna, Jason Grilli and Joe Biagini.
Howell and Smith threw an inning each in the loss to the Yankees, and both were perfect.
Howell, making his third appearance of the spring (second of the Grapefruit League – he worked in the fake fake game against Team Canada on March 7th), got Rob Refsnyder on a harmless fly ball then struck out Dustin Fowler and Jorge Mateo.
Smith, in a game for the fifth time, worked to the middle of the Yankees’ order and struck out defending National League home run leader Chris Carter before popping up Aaron Judge and getting Kyle Higashioka on a grounder to short.
The two veterans will be asked to bridge the gap between the Blue Jays’ league-leading starting rotation and the big three arms at the back of the bullpen.
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BOUNCING BACK, BUT…
Lucas Harrell hit his first speed bump of the spring against the Philadelphia Phillies on March 11th, when he came in to pitch the seventh inning, faced five hitters and allowed three doubles.
To that point, the righty had put himself on the map having thrown four innings of one-hit shutout over three outings including a start, impressing the Blue Jays’ brass with his command and ability to get ground balls.
Harrell, who has pitched in 97 major-league games with four teams over parts of six seasons, was given the ball in the ninth inning of Thursday’s loss in an attempt to get his spring back on track, and he did what he had to – throwing strikes and getting ground balls – but it didn’t work.
Donovan Solano led off with a little nubber up the third-base line that he beat out for a hit, and Harrell got ground balls from the next three Yankees he faced. The first one, with the runner going, was gobbled up by shortstop Richard Urena and fired over to first for the out. The next one was flagged down by second baseman Gunnar Heidt up the middle, but he wasn’t able to make the jump-throw and it went for an infield single.
Next, Billy McKinney hit another double-play ball – really the third straight hit by a Yankee – but it went in and out of Heidt’s glove for an error.
Harrell then threw a wild pitch and issued a walk to load the bases and Ji-Man Choi hit a hot shot to first base that skipped off the glove of Rowdy Tellez and into right field for an RBI single.
In all, Harrell faced nine Yankee hitters in the top of the ninth and gave up one hard-hit ball – and even that one should have been caught and turned into a double play. He walked one, hit one, got a pop up and five ground balls…and gave up four runs, two earned because of the official scoring rule that a double play can’t be assumed.
Harrell’s Grapefruit League numbers won’t recover from this outing, but he was a lot more effective than his line showed and deserved a whole lot better.
The Blue Jays make the arduous five-mile trek to Clearwater on Friday for their fifth of seven spring contests against the neighbouring Phillies. The Jays are 1-2-1 against the Phils so far and will send Marco Estrada to the mound against righty Aaron Nola. Kevin Barker and I have the game for you – online only – beginning at 1:00pm Eastern. Listen here.
