DUNEDIN, FLA – Brandon Morrow believes if he’s ever going to become the elite starter so many people project him to be, he’s going to have to rely more on his curveball and changeup.
During Wednesday’s 3-3, nine-inning tie against the Boston Red Sox here in Dunedin, Morrow tossed two scoreless, nearly perfect innings and said afterwards he felt everything was working for him, especially the two aforementioned off-speed pitches.
“I felt good,” he said. “On time with my body and mechanics, a lot of curveballs, a lot of changeups, which has been my focus since Day 1 and I’m going to continue that through the spring.”
At times last season Morrow was guilty was relying too heavily on two, albeit at times overpowering pitches: his mid-90s fastball and his high-80s slider. Both pitches are delivered hard, so while Morrow has the ability to miss a lot of bats when the two pitches are working for him, his inability to consistently throw a third pitch for strikes can get him into trouble if even one is slightly off.
Prior to Wednesday’s game against the Blue Jays, new Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine summed up Morrow’s 2011 like this:
“I saw when his slider was on, he was a pretty good pitcher and when it was ‘frisbee-ing’ up, he could get hit pretty hard,” he said.
Morrow left the slider in the tool box on Wednesday – and his cutter too for that matter – but he didn’t need them anyway. Not with the way he was throwing his curve.
“It was good,” he said. “I tried to throw everything for a strike out there today and I think I was pretty much right on with all my curveballs,” adding that when it came to his fastball, he only “humped up” on one in which he flew open on his delivery before quickly settling back down.
ROUGH OUTING FOR DRABEK VS. PIRATES
The Blue Jays played a pair of split squad games on Wednesday.
While Brandon Morrow and one-half of the team was in Dunedin taking on the Boston Red Sox, Kyle Drabek and the other half travelled south to Bradenton where they took on the Pittsburgh Pirates.
And while Morrow came away happy with the results of his performance, it’s doubtful Drabek felt the same after surrendering three runs on four hits and a walk in Toronto’s 8-6 win.
There was plenty of good news for Toronto to come out of Bradenton on Wednesday as all 13 Blue Jays batters recorded at least one hit, including Travis Snider who hit his first home run of the spring, a two-run shot in the fifth inning.
Meanwhile a pair of top Toronto pitching prospects — right-handers Deck McGuire and Drew Hutchsion – gave up a just one run and five hits over their four innings of combined work against the Pirates. The lone run came on a solo home run surrendered by Hutchison to Pirates first baseman Garrett Jones.
THE BATTLE IN LEFT
We weren’t in Bradenton, but the box score tells us Snider finished 1-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs. Meanwhile in Dunedin, Eric Thames went 0-for-3, but he did make a nice running catch to run down a flyball deep in the left-centre gap.
HECHAVARRIA FEELS THE LOVE
Fans in attendance at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium on Wednesday got to see what all the fuss is about with Adeiny Hechavarria.
The 22-year-old Cuban shortstop made a pair of slick plays in the field, including a spectacular dive to his left to snare a rocket one-hopper off the bat of Cody Ross. Hechavarria quickly jumped to his feet and delivered a strong an accurate throw to first to retire the Red Sox left fielder.
In the bottom of the seventh, Hechavarria led off by ripping a ball into the gap in right-centre. Rounding second without hesitation he dove into third head-first, but was called out on a close play thanks to a perfect Red Sox relay.
It wasn’t the wisest option late in a tie game with none out, nevertheless, as he returned to the Blue Jays dugout, the Dunedin faithful rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation for an afternoon’s worth of entertainment.
BOBBY V TALKS BLUE JAYS
Wednesday marked Bobby Valentine’s first foray into Dunedin as manager of the Boston Red Sox and as advertised, he was at times charming, thoughtful, combative and difficult with beat reporters during his morning scrum with reporters.
Judge for yourself as to how to categorize his response to a question on his impression of the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I really haven’t had time to form an impression yet, and I probably won’t have an impression until May or June to tell you the truth,” he said. “I know that they work real hard, their front-office is very diligent and good at doing what’s best. They have a core of established players that they can build around and be good.”
Up next: A full squad Blue Jays team hosts the New York Yankees in Dunedin at 1:05 p.m. ET. Brett Cecil gets the start for Toronto.
