Grapefruit Notes: The much-anticipated George Springer debut that nobody saw
By Cam Lewis
3 years agoThe Blue Jays remain undefeated in 2021 as they beat the Phillies by a score of 4-2 (after picking up a 2-2 tie against the Pirates on Monday.
Tuesday’s game was headlined by George Springer’s debut as a Blue Jay. Unfortunately, all we got to see from this game was A) a MLB dot com’s Gameday feed and B) a 10-second clip on Twitter of Springer hitting a single.
This whole spring training broadcast (or lack thereof) situation is obviously nothing new and everyone has pissed and moaned about it by this point. But still, it’s absolutely perplexing that Rogers allowed the Blue Jays to go out and spend $150 million on a player and the first view of them in a game wasn’t aired or even played on the radio.
Could you imagine if John Tavares’ first pre-season game with the Maple Leafs wasn’t aired? I’ve seen more effort put into broadcasting pre-pre-season NHL rookie intra-squad games than George Springer’s Blue Jays debut.
Anyways!
Things worth mentioning…
- We also missed the not-quite-as-anticipated debuts of Steven Matz and Tyler Chatwood, two of Toronto’s off-season pitching additions. Matz tossed two innings and allowed one hit while striking out three and Chatwood threw one clean inning. Tim Mayza, who hadn’t pitched since his arm blew out back in late-2019, also threw an inning in which he surrendered only a walk, which is a nice sign.
- Also, circling back to Monday’s game… Robbie Ray got taken deep by former Blue Jay Anthony Alford but was otherwise quite good. Ray, whose success and failure will ultimately come down to his ability to throw the ball into the zone, threw 26 pitches and 24 of them were strikes. That’s a very, very good sign for one of Pete Walker’s reclamation projects.
- On the other side of that, though, Nate Pearson had a difficult inning in his 2021 debut on Monday. Pearson took 28 pitches to navigate through one inning of work and his struggle with command was much reminiscent of what ultimately derailed the majority of his starts last season. But, hey, it’s spring training, and, as the rules stipulate, the results only matter if they’re positive.
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