While last night’s 4-3 late inning meltdown was not the ending John Gibbons and company were looking for, one would think the Toronto Blue Jays are absolutely thrilled with the pitching performances they have received from both Drew Hutchison and R.A. Dickey to kick-off their 2015 campaign.
As good as Hutchison looked in Monday afternoon’s season opening win against the New York Yankees, one can argue the former Cy Young Award winner was arguably even better in his 2015 debut. A cold and windy night at Yankee Stadium in early April is never an ideal situation for any pitcher and it can be all the more troublesome for a guy who throws a knuckleball. Well…that certainly was not the case on Wednesday evening.
Dickey took a one run lead into the seventh inning, before being lifted for rookie Miguel Castro with one out and a man on base. Not surprisingly, the kid who quickly became the story of the Jays Spring Training shut the door and brought an end to what was a rather impressive night of pitching for the forty year-old right-hander.
Heading into his first start of the year, much had been made of the Blue Jays decision to have Russell Martin catch the veteran knuckleballer, opposed to his long-time personal caddy Josh Thole. Outside of a couple of minor hiccups, the two seemed to be in sync for much of the evening and in all honesty, Dickey seemed perfectly fine throwing to his new battery mate. To be perfectly fair, the first seven and a half innings went about as well as anyone could have hoped.
Unfortunately, the duo of Aaron Loup and Brett Cecil proceeded to self-destruct in the eighth and promptly turned a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 deficit and ultimately handed Toronto their first loss of the young season. On a positive note, as bad as Loup and Cecil were, the rookie tandem of Castro and Roberto Osuna were downright dominant during their combined inning and a third of work. Again, it may not seem like much at the moment but as this season moves along, those two kids may be forced into carrying a far bigger load than anyone could have envisioned.
With that said, the biggest question mark surrounding this team heading into 2015 was its bullpen and watching it self-implode against the Yankees, only further solidified those concerns. However, while it may only just be two starts, you would be hard-pressed to find a single soul within this organization who would not be tickled pink about the performances we saw from Drew Hutchison and R.A. Dickey.
Twenty-one year old Daniel Norris will be making the second big-league start of his career on Thursday night in the series finale and considering how good the young arms have performed throughout the spring and the opening couple of days of 2015, expecting anything other than another quality start from a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher is likely not a good idea. With Mark Buehrle and Aaron Sanchez set to take the mound against the Baltimore Orioles over the coming weekend, expecting much of the same, at least for the time being, might not be such a bad bet.