The Houston Astros bullpen ranked number one in fWAR and FIP last season, which means that there likely won’t be a spot for Edison Frias in the bullpen to start the season. Regardless, he was given an opportunity to show what he can do on Saturday and he certainly made an impression.
If you tune in to a spring training game early on, you’ll likely hear one of the announcers say something to the effect of, “At this point in the spring, you tend to see the pitchers a little bit ahead of the hitters.” That was not the case for Houston Astros minor league starter/reliever Edison Frias.
After starter Brad Peacock went two scoreless frames, the Detroit Tigers pounced on Frias, who started the bottom of the third inning with a walk to Juan Perez. The following three batters–Andrew Romine, Ian Kinsler and Victor Martinez–all homered. With Miguel Cabrera coming up to the dish to try and make it four in a row, Frias tossed a curveball that hit Miggy, which was enough to get Frias tossed.
The final line: 3 hits, 4 earned, 1 walk, 3 home runs allowed and zero outs recorded. Needless to say, that is about as bad a spring debut as a pitcher can have.
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Frias is 26 and 14 of his 19 appearances last season came as a starting pitcher, including four starts in Triple-A Fresno in late July, early August before landing on the 7-day disabled list and missing the rest of the season. Couple the slightly longer layoff with some probable jitters that coincide with making your professional spring training debut and the outing makes a little more sense.
"“I couldn’t command any of my pitches. I was all over the place…I’ll be ready next time.” –Frias as told to Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle."
In his four starts with Fresno, Frias held a 9.95 ERA across 19 innings, holding a WHIP just under 2.00. It was so bad for Frias in his first stint in the uppermost level of the minors, that his walk rate (4.3) was higher than his strikeout rate (3.8), both well off from his career averages. In Double-A Corpus Christi, the 6-foot-1 right-hander held a 2.44 ERA over 73 2/3 innings.
With his first go-around in Fresno being rough, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that his first time facing big league hitters would be tough as well, especially when Kinsler, Martinez and Cabrera are in the mix.
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For now, Frias’ spring ERA will sit at infinity, so the first goal with his next outing will be to record an out and set his ERA to numerical form. Another cliche that spring announcers like to use, “Hey, it’s spring training for ___ too!” comes in handy here. This was his first opportunity to show the big league coaches what he could do and he failed miserably. But think of the story that this could become if he turns things around in the coming weeks. Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see.