ROMERO BREEZES THROUGH FIRST START

Blue Jays believe pitcher is back on track

NEW YORK • As he tried to puncture the gloom surrounding his team, Alex Anthopoulos at least had some demonstrably good news to report.

It came not from the Toronto Blue Jays, but the Dunedin Blue Jays, for whom exiled left-hander Ricky Romero pitched Saturday, and with impressive results.

Testing his refined mechanics, the former Toronto ace worked seven innings and allowed one run in a start for the Jays’ Class-A farm team

When you see him getting ground balls, that’s what allowed him to go so deep

in the Florida State League.

In his first start in more than a month, Romero gave up six hits, walked none and struck out four. Fourteen of his outs came via the ground ball.

Anthopoulos, the general manager, said Romero’s mechanics were consistent and effective. He was most impressed with those groundball outs.

“His ball moves so much, when you have that type of action and life, you’re going to run some deep counts at times,” Anthopoulos said Sunday in New York. “When you see him getting ground balls, that’s what allowed him to go so deep into games in the past and rack up 220 innings. If he does walk a guy, he can get two outs with that ground ball. That’s probably the most encouraging sign, getting all those ground balls.”

After a banner season in 2011, Romero hit bottom last year, pitching through elbow pain and patchy mechanics to a 5.77 ERA. Off-season surgery cleaned up his elbow, but his delivery problems persisted throughout spring training and he was sent to the minors March 26.

Since then, he has been working daily with minor-league pitching instructor Dane Johnson to direct his delivery on a straight line to the plate and finish his pitches with a full follow-through. Finally, Johnson deemed him ready to try out his new delivery in a game.

“I know it’s a Florida State League game but overall Dane has done a really good job with him,” Anthopoulos said.

There has been no indication from the Blue Jays about how many starts Romero would need or whether he will progress through the minor-league levels before being considered for reinstatement with the Blue Jays. Such decisions are largely in Johnson’s hands, the GM said.

“I’m really leaning on [Johnson] to make the decisions on what he feels is best,” Anthopoulos said. “You know, Dane’s the one who decided he was ready for a start now. I’m not down there day in and day out; Dane is the one doing the work with him.”

Nor has there been any suggestion about whose place Romero would take in the rotation if his comeback is successful.

“At some point, obviously we expect Romero to continue to progress and we’ll have a decision to make, which is exactly what we want,” Anthopoulos said. “That’s a good thing. We want him back to being the guy he was, the all-star, and that’s a great problem for our organization to have.”

In 2011, Romero won 15 games, logged a 2.92 ERA and made the allstar team.