Kimbrel goes extra in effort to ‘ramp up’
FORT MYERS — Craig Kimbrel wasn’t supposed to pitch in the Red Sox’ final spring training game, but the closer talked his way into one last outing before camp broke.
Kimbrel struck out two in a perfect fifth inning for the Sox in their 4-2 win over the Chicago Cubs to wrap up spring training.
“I feel like I’m getting ready for Game 1,” said Kimbrel, who missed three weeks to be home with his newborn daughter, who needed heart surgery. “There’s a lot of games in the season. It has been tough, but we made it work and I’ll be ready to go.”
Kimbrel said he wasn’t feeling great about the quality of his pitches and wanted one last tune-up before Opening Day tomorrow.
“My breaking ball was good today,” he said. “I still have a few clicks on my fastball to find, but overall commanding the ball and getting my breaking ball over for strikes and getting some bite when I needed to. I think if I can take anything out of today, it would be getting good spin off my breaking ball and throwing it a lot on 0-2.”
Now that he’s ready to pitch, the big question is when will he pitch?
New manager Alex Cora made headlines in the winter when he said he planned on using Kimbrel in a more versatile role this year, perhaps calling on him in the seventh or eighth inning if there were high-leverage situations.
But after Kimbrel left camp in February to be with his family, Cora backed off on that plan for the time being.
“Physically is he ready to go for what we were talking about earlier?” Cora said. “We’ll reassess that later in the season. But we did talk before he left. We have to be fair for him. For him to just to be here is great, but the No. 1 priority is his family. And now that he’s back here, we have to make sure we know he’s ready to pitch, but obviously the volume we have to make sure is a ramp up.”
Cora said he wasn’t sure Kimbrel would be able to throw two innings at a time, so that conversation will pick up later in the season.
Kimbrel was appreciative. He maintains that he’s open to the idea of pitching in a different role, but would need to discuss it.
“You’ve still got to go out there and get the outs you have to get,” he said. “Obviously sometimes you may not give your team a chance to come back in the ninth inning or in the eighth inning if you give up 10 runs. That opportunity is still there. There’s definitely sometimes bigger outs in the eighth than there are in the ninth. I wouldn’t say bigger outs, but bigger spots and bigger bats just depending on how the lineup rolls around sometimes.
“I’m just ready for Opening Day. As far as the eighth or the ninth, things like that, we’ll just talk about that when we get there.”
Velazquez goes 4th
Hector Velazquez won the fourth spot in the starting rotation already, but he made Cora look good for that decision with four shutout innings against the Cubs.
“For his confidence it probably mattered, but for us it didn’t matter,” Cora said. “He’s going to start Game 4 and he was going to start Game 4 regardless. He did a good job. That’s a good lineup he faced. A good mix of pitches. Good fastball. Changeup, split down in the zone. He was great.”
Velazquez had a 2.92 ERA in eight big league games last year but spent most of the season in the minors after signing out of Mexico. He’s likely to be back and forth again this year, since he does have minor league options.
“I know what my role is currently, it’s to serve as a supplement to the big guys in front of me,” he said. “It’s my job to basically execute when it’s my day to pitch and give us the best chance.”
Cora ready to go
Cora’s team finished with 22 wins, most in the bigs this spring.
The next time he manages a game, his family will be there, he said.
“Honestly, in the ninth inning today I was like, ‘Oh God, here we go. I am a big league manager,’ ” Cora said. “Looking forward to Thursday. It’s going to be a great day. My family is coming. It’s going to be a fun day for us. The fact (my brother) Joey can’t make it, that is going to be hard for us. Personally, I know he’s there for us. And as far as the team, we’re ready. We’ve been playing good baseball for awhile now.” . . .
Rafael Devers checked out fine after his home plate collision Tuesday and will be in the lineup on Opening Day, Cora said . . . .
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The PawSox announced free tickets for children on select Monday-Thursday games this season via a partnership with CVS. More information can be found on PawSox.com.