Quick Spring Recap: Jays Lose to Phillies

Mar 27, 2023 - 8:17 PM

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Phillies 5 Blue Jays 2

I don’t want to read too much into spring games, but the lack of hitting from the ‘regulars’ over the past couple of games is bugging me.

Chris Bassitt wasn't great. 4.2 innings, 8 hits, 1 walk and 4 strikeouts. He had 4 ‘earned’ runs, but two of those runs weren’t really earned. In the first, with runners at first and second and no outs, Chris got a ground ball to Cavan Biggio, who made a nice throw to second base. Bo’s throw to first was perfect, but Vlad missed it. Not called an error because scorers misread the line in the rule book saying ‘you can’t assume a double play’. Once you have the out at second you really should be able to assume an easy catch will be made. A single, followed by a ground out (which would have been the last out), followed by a walk and another second put the Phillies up 2-0.

Bassitt gave up two more in the second, a Trea Turner two-run homer.

He did give up 8 hits but the home run was really the only hard-hit ball. He threw 95 pitches (calling his own pitches, with the pitch thing in his glove), it looked to me that he wanted to use all of his pitches (Buck was telling us he throws eight pitches), trying to make he had a feel for all of them.

After Bassitt:

• Anthony Bass got the last out of the fifth, after giving up a walk.
• Trevor Richards got the next 7 outs, getting 5 strikeouts. It looks like Richards will be the ‘long man’ to start the season. He was very impressive. 31 pitches.
• Yimi Garcia got the last two outs of the eighth.
• Jordon Romano got 3 strikeouts in the ninth but gave up a solo homer.

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The bats were pretty quiet:

They had 7 hits. The starters only had 2 hits, Santiago Espinal and Kevin Kiermaier (double), each had a hit. We did get 6 walks. Vlad, Jansen, Kirk, Capra and Biggio (2) took the base on balls.

The subs gave us some excitement:

• Nathan Lukes was 2 for 3 with a triple, RBI and run.
• Estiven Machado was 1 for 3, but his 1 was a hard-hit single (GameDay says 102 MPH).
• PK Morris drove in our other run.
• Alejandro Kirk, coming in as a pinch hitter and staying for another at bat, was 0 for 1 with a walk.
• Riley Tirotta was 2 for 2.

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There was a rather strange moment, plate umpire Randy Rosenberg ejected JT Realmuto for.....oh i don’t know, you can watch it here:

Rosenberg had just handed out a ball for a ‘time clock violation’, and had thrown a ball to the pitcher. Realmuto, apparently, didn’t see that his pitcher had a ball, and put up his glove to get one from the umpire.

I think he noticed the pitcher had a ball and brought down his glove just as Rosenberg tried to put it in his glove. The umpire maybe thought JT had moved the glove on purpose to make him look bad.

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The Jays and Phillies play tomorrow, but it isn’t on Sportsnet, and I’m not expecting that any of the regulars will be in the game.

The team has announced the pitching rotation for the first time through. After Manoah on opening day, we’ll see Gausman, Bassitt, Berrios and Kikuchi in games 2-5.