Despite late arrival, Montas feels like he’s caught up

MESA,ARIZ.>> The Chicago Cubs visited Hohokam Stadium and took the A’s for a ride, beating Oakland 6-1 on Friday afternoon. Both teams based in Mesa sent out their A-teams, with Matt Chapman, Matt Olson and Mark Canha lining up with Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Willson Contreras. Frankie Montas facing off against their right-hander Zach Davies. FRANKIE MONTAS GIVES UP SOME RUNS, AND THAT’S OK >> Frankie Montas took the mound for a second time this spring and threw his splitter a good amount, was locating his fastball/sinker and mixed in his slider. It didn’t matter that he gave up two runs, including a whopping solo home run off the bat of Cubs catcher Contreras.

“I was able to hit my spots,” Montas said. “I was able to throw my fastball how I wanted, and my splitter was good today. I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes, which I was happy about. Except for the runs.”

A crucial pitch for Montas to integrate more readily from his arsenal this regular season will be his splitter. The splitter helped facilitate his breakout 2019 year — a breakout with a performance enhancement drug suspension mid-season — as it played masterfully with his turbo sinker and slider.

“I wanted to go out there and throw a couple splitters to see how it was playing,” Montas said. “That’s a pitch I’m not worried about. I know I have it in my back pocket when I need it. Today I wanted to use all my pitches.”

Montas was hitting his typical 96-98 mph with his fastball/ sinker velocity on Friday. Montas missed the first week of camp recovering from COVID-19, which put him a step behind the other starters, pitch-count wise. But he threw 50-plus pitches on Friday, which is about on par with where the other starters are at on the rotation’s second turn.

Of slight concern with the coaching staff when he arrived was how his POST-COVID symptoms might manifest as he was integrated into spring training. But, from the jump, Montas said he wasn’t too concerned that he would catch up with the rest of his rotation mates.

“For whatever happened when I got COVID, I was throwing live BP,” Montas said.