Yesterday’s spring training action saw a couple of pitching prospects live up to form, and a veteran first baseman showing signs of life.
A couple of hotshot young pitching prospects looked very much like what they are – hotshot young pitching prospects – during Thursday’s spring training action. The Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin and the Athletics’ A.J. Puk both enhanced their hopes of winning spots in their teams’ regular season rotations.
Here are the winners and losers from Thursday’s spring play.
Loser: Legacies
There is no finer current illustration of the legacy concept than the Toronto Blue Jays. They have a son at third base (Vlad Guerrero Jr.), a son at shortstop (Bo Bichette), a son at second base (Cavan Biggio) and a younger sibling at DH (Lourdes Gurriel ).
Facing the Twins Thursday, however, all that legacy power came to naught…literally. In the Twins-Jays 3-3 tie, Guerrero, Bichette, Biggio and Gurriel delivered a collective 0-for-9 with two strikeouts.
Nearly a week into training, Biggio now leads the Toronto legacies in batting average, but at only .286. Guerrero is at .250, Bichette at .091 and Gurriel is looking for his first base hit. Collectively, they are giving bloodlines a bad name.
Losers: Pittsburgh Pirates offense (cont.)
In this space yesterday, the woeful nature of the Pirates spring offense was taken notice of. The new day brought no change. In a 13-0 beatdown at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles Thursday, the Pirates offense delivered merely three singles and one double.
The core of the projected Pirate offense – Kevin Newman, Bryan Reynolds, Josh Bell and Gregory Polanco – is now a cumulative 2-for-28. The Pirates are 0-6.