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Spring training stats don't matter.
Spring training stats don't matter.
Spring training stats don't matter.
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A pitcher would be hard-pressed to be worse than Jose Quintana was on Tuesday afternoon against Oakland. A couple of those base hits were grounders that obeyed the speed limit. He could've walked/hit more batters, or given up more homers. Or he could've faced 10 batters without retiring a single one, instead of nine. So, yeah, Quintana set a pretty high-low bar.
His start had a chance to turn on the third batter. With runners on the corners, Quintana jumped ahead of Jed Lowrie 0-2. Tyler Flowers called for a fastball letter-high and inside.
Quintana threw it belt-high and over the plate, the A's led 3-0.
The center of the strike zone had a strong pull on Quintana's stuff all day long -- although his day wasn't that long. Robin Ventura threw in the towel for him after 36 pitches.
The good news: Nobody seems to think an injury is the problem, whether it's Robin Ventura ...
"It just looks a little flat," Ventura said. "But velocity is there."
... or Dan Hayes' scout friend:
One National League scout said he didn’t detect any obvious arm issues.
But Ventura said his cutter and breaking pitches were flat, and both he and Hayes' scout friend said there are some issues with his delivery. Either way, it led to a lot of elevated pitches ... except for the one he was supposed to elevate.
Quintana, who is handling interviews in English, is getting a chance to work on the damage-control part of his vocabulary as well as his repertoire.
"A bad day for me," said Quintana, who threw a bullpen session to hit his pitch count after he was removed from the game. "First time in my career I got nobody out in the lineup. A couple of mistakes. I need to continue with my preparation, and I'll be ready for the season."
