A SELECT FIELD
Jays prospect Anthony Alford closes in on the bigs, now that he’s chosen one sport,
You’ve been doing the same thing pretty much your entire life. You do it better than all but .00000001 per cent of the population.
And still, come spring training, somebody puts a baseball in your hand and you look at it askance: What am I supposed to do with this again?
OK, maybe it’s not quite that crazy. But close enough, Marco Estrada reckons.
“I know we’ve been doing this our entire lives. But you take three or four months off and you get back out there and you feel like you’ve never done it before. You’ve got to work on the stuff all over again.”
Repetition, muscle memory, mechanics. Cranking up the spunk and sinew in your pitching arm. Because, really, pitching is just about the least natural of all human movements. Elbows and shoulders were never intended to do that.
After four innings pitched on Friday, Estrada’s elbow and shoulder were swathed in honkin’ huge ice bags. And yet the moundsman was delighted by how fine he felt after throwing 54 pitches — no walks, two strikes, four homely hits as the Blue Jays set aside Baltimore 8-5.
It was the 34-year-old’s third start of the spring. Toronto’s leader in wins (32) and strikeouts (472) over the past three seasons, Estrada is back on a one-year, $13-million contract with free agency on the horizon again. Not that’s he looking any further than his next Grapefruit League start, of course.
“Just build up the stamina. I want to be able to leave here and, hopefully, the first game of the season I can give them a lot of innings. I don’t want to get tired when I’m in the fifth, sixth, seventh inning. It’s just building up the stamina and the only way to do it is to be out there pitching, facing guys, and getting the adrenalin going. And actually put something behind every pitch. Go out there and work your butt off.”
The changeup specialist stuck mostly to that and (slow) fastballs to upset hitter timing, his bread and butter. Estrada hardly used his cutter and curveball at all. “I’m still trying to get the four-seam location (on the fastball) and the changeup location, but overall I love the way everything is coming out.”
Catcher Russell Martin even called for the change on 3-2 counts, which was startling to Estrada. “Awesome. I threw it exactly where I wanted it.”
He was satisfied that he was staying over the rubber — “the biggest thing for me is just drifting forward” — especially on the windup, and encouraged by the ball’s movement. “The delivery feels really good. I feels like the timing is where it needs to be. Hopefully it just keeps getting better.” PEN PAL: There were these two raw rookie pitchers at spring training three years ago. One, who was really the add-on, with not much expected of him, was Roberto Osuna. The other was a six-foot-seven beanpole flamethrower with a condor wingspan who touched the radar gun at 100 m.p.h.
Stunningly, both young men broke camp with the team. Osuna, of course, was headed for closer glitterati. But Miguel Castro, who had so many jaws dropping, quickly came a cropper in the big leagues: a 4.38 ERA in 13 appearances before he was sent to the minors. Eventu- ally, he was part of the trade later that year that brought over Troy Tulowitzki from the Rockies. And just about 13 months ago, Castro was acquired in another trade by the Orioles.
There were nothing but best wishes around the Jays for their one-time teammate, who started for Baltimore in Friday’s game, giving up one run on two hits with two walks in three innings.
“Kid’s got a special place in my heart,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “We brought both of them up, these really young kids. That’s always a gamble.”
For a pitcher who brings such torrid heat, Castro has had difficulty striking guys out. But after banishment to the bullpen, the Orioles are intent on giving the 23-year-old Dominican every chance to earn a spot in their starting rotation.
“I know they like him,” said Gibbons. “I’m rooting for him, I really am.”