Quick Spring Recap: Rough Start for Joe Biagini

We have an update on why Dalton Pompey was scratched from the line up today. Glad it’s not anything more serious.

Joe Biagini had a rough day. 1.2 innings pitched, allowing 4 hits (including a triple and two homers) and was charged with five earned runs. He also walked two, and struck out two. He left a lot of pitches up in the zone.

Most of the damage was done in the second inning. A solo run came in the first inning on a single, which was eventually cashed in on a sac fly. In the second, he had one on base with two outs, and was one pitch from getting out of the inning when he allowed the triple. Then came the back-to-back home runs and he was done. Jose Fernandez got the last out.

Quality of Pitch says Joe Biagini has really great stuff.

In fact, their calculations claim Biagini had the third best stuff in all of MLB last year, with a minimum of 1,000 pitches thrown.

As for his struggles today, Biagini had this to say:

Many people on Twitter see today’s outing as evidence Biagini should not be a starter, but with Marcus Stroman’s status still unknown, he will almost certainly continue as such for the next couple weeks. He will have a couple more starts before the end of Spring Training. It will be interesting to see how they go.

The rest of the Blue Jays pitchers shutout the Pirates:

• Jose Fernandez: 1.1 IP, 2 hits. He forgot to cover first on a Justin Smoak diving play.
• Danny Barnes: 1.0 IP, clean, 2 strikeouts.
• Luis Santos: 2.0 IP, clean, 2 strikeouts.
• Matt Dermody: 1.0 IP, 1 hit.
• Deck McGuire: 1.0 IP, 1 hit
• Justin Shafer: 1.0 IP, 1 walk

The explosive offense we have been privy to over the past few games vanished today. Teoscar Hernandez reached in all three at bats, but the team didn’t score a single run.

Blue Jays hitters:

• Devon Travis: 0-for-3, .273
• Yangervis Solarte: 0-for-3, 0.80
• Kevin Pillar: 1-for-2, .455, was caught stealing
• Justin Smoak: 0-for-2, .143. He was a foot shy of hitting a home run, and made a very nice diving catch at first
• Kendrys Morales: 0-for-3, .207
• Teoscar Hernandez: 1-for-2 with a walk, reached once on an error, and had a very nice hit and run play with Diaz, .308
• Aledmys Diaz: 1-for-2, .182
• Reese McGuire: 0-for-2 with a strikeout, .300
• Roemon Fields: 0-for-3 with a strikeout, .412
• Jason Leblebijian: 0-for-2 with a strikeout, .219
• Anthony Alford: 1-for-2, reached on an error, .333
• Richard Ureña: 0-for-2, reached on an error, .100
• Danny Jansen: 0-for-2, .167
• Tim Lopes: a walk
• Richard Urena, Jon Berti, Max Pentecost, Jonathan Davis: 0-for-1

Tomorrow the Jays will play the Boston Red Sox in Dunedin for the first time this year. JA Happ gets the start.