Pitchers can expect to have their regimens customized
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Competitors for an Astros rotation spot as long as they’re healthy, veterans Doug Fister and Scott Feldman tossed with each other Thursday, creating about the tallest pair of throwing partners one can find. Fister, new to the team, is 6-8. Feldman is 6-5.
Walking alongside them, manager A.J. Hinch looked diminutive.
When Dallas Keuchel pulled into Osceola County Stadium, he unwrapped a glove with the gold Rawlings foil on it — the mark signifying he’s a Gold Glove winner. (That’s two times now, if you’re counting.)
“It’s always nice to get back here and get going,” said Keuchel, who’s in his seventh Kissimmee camp, including his minor league days.
All Astros pitchers and catchers were due in town Thursday, the first official marker spring training has started, even though camp has been stirring much of the week. Old friend Wandy Rodriguez hit the clubhouse around 4 p.m.
Ceremonially, though, everything started anew Thursday — or maybe that really occurs next week, when the team has its first full squad workout. The start of spring training is a little like treating your birthday as a birthday week. The celebration keeps coming.
“I think the first fullsquad day is the really true kickoff,” Hinch said. “Not to take lightly the first four days here, which is the pitchers and catchers, but when you have the full team together, it’s going to be 61 people in that room that are all together for the first time.
“They filter in throughout the day. There’s a lot of position players that are already here. The true kickoff is the first time you stand in front of your team and you do introductions with your group and you get out on the field and the guys are going through stretch.”
What spring training is not, contrary to the imagery of rebirths and fresh starts, is a wipeout of last year. In fact, the regimen for Astros pitchers this spring will be highly customized because so many reached career highs in innings, from Keuchel and Collin McHugh to Will Harris.
Once upon a time, pitchers got to spring training, started to throw together along a regular progression, and that was that. Everybody built up similarly.
That wouldn’t be very high-minded these days.
“We’re going to individualize things a lot based on how we feel is the best way to get each individual guy ready, not just as a group as a hole,” Hinch said.
Keuchel expects his first bullpen in Florida will come over the weekend and said he’d thrown about three or four beforehand, which is not out of the ordinary. His offseason routine began a week later than it had in the past after he threw a whopping 232 innings.
The righty McHugh, who had an excellent 2015 and finished with 19 wins despite a rough start, said everybody on the staff could notice the effect of the innings increase. He compiled a career-high 2032⁄ and said he again
3 wants to go without missing a start and cross that 200 threshold.
“It takes a toll on you at the end of the season, but at that point you’re kind of running on fumes anyway,” McHugh said. “You’ve kind of got to grind it out and let adrenaline take you the rest of the way. I didn’t even throw as many Dallas. Dallas had 570-something innings.”
Neshek no longer has bone to pick
Reliever Pat Neshek never made an excuse when he struggled at the end of 2015, never said a fracture in his right foot was hampering him.
Of course, it bothered him more than he let on.
Over the offseason, the righthander had a piece of bone removed from the outer half of his right foot. The piece looks huge but is one Neshek said he cannot tell is missing, aside from how much better he feels. Neshek had a picture of the bone next to a ruler, and it measured about an inch.
“It wasn’t fun,” Neshek said of how he felt during the year. “You don’t want to make it a big deal, take away from the team. It was real painful after I’d get done (with the day). It was more at night. I’d walk home after a game — that was the worst. And then sometimes if you pitch back-to-back days, you’d come in going, ‘How the hell am I going to walk today?’ ”
The foot is a lot better than it was before the surgery, Neshek said, noting he thinks spring drills will tell him more.
Now 35, Neshek discov- ered the fracture in spring training a year ago but was told he could keep pitching with it. And he did so, at a really high level, for a long time — although in retrospect, collecting additional opinions or going for a procedure immediately might have been the best course of action.
Neshek had a 2.56 ERA on July 30. He didn’t allow a walk for 24 straight appearances to start the season, a streak that lasted into June. But a 7.15 ERA from Aug. 15 through the end of the regular season took him out of the setup role manager A.J. Hinch had been using him in, with Tony Sipp and Will Harris serving replacements.
Odds and ends
Reliever Luke Gregerson will be limited as camp gets underway because of left oblique soreness he said he suffered a little more than a week ago playing catch. Gregerson threw lightly on Thursday just to keep his arm moving. He said he cut himself off from throwing when he did because he didn’t want to do anything to worsen the situation. …
Dallas Keuchel’s Cy Young Award has a place waiting in his cabinet at home, but he doesn’t have it in his possession right now. “It’s at the field,” he said, “because the Astros want to do some PR stuff, or else it’d be in my memorabilia case.” …
A day after doing some catching drills with Max Stassi, manager A.J. Hinch did more with him, as well as with Alfredo Gonzalez.