Spencer Steer, Jose Trevino And Alexis Diaz Face Challenges

 

 

Dateline: 318 Kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico

March 16 

The Reds will face a Seattle Mariner split squad on the Sunday before the Reds break camp. Brady Singer starts for the Reds.

Manager Terry Francona talked about how tough it is to evaluate players in the spring.

“I’m telling the hardest thing, it could be for me, it could be for you, trying to evaluate in spring training, you could make yourself crazy,” Francona said. “I lose sleep over it.”

Francona’s nightmare includes Alexis Diaz and his performance in three games this spring. The Reds did acquire Scott Barlow and Taylor Rogers, who have closed in the past.

“The old adage, when you think you have enough pitching, go get more,” Francona said.

Diaz lasted just a third of an inning on March 15 and gave up five runs with three walks.

“We talked about Diaz yesterday. I was thinking about it when I went home until 3:00,” Francona said. “Bryan Shaw is one of the best examples I can think of. His spring training was no different than I’ve seen in the past. His situation is different. So it’s hard. It’s really hard (to evaluate)”

“Saying that DJ (pitching coach Derek Johnson) thinks he has to sync up his delivery a little more,” Francona continued. “I think his next game will be in a minor league game. We can kind of manage it a little bit better.”

One day after a CT scan, Jose Trevino was ready to catch but Francona pulled him and Will Banfield caught instead. 

“I talked to him (Trevino) and we decided to push him back one more day,” Francona explained. “He was actually pretty upbeat. If he got a foul tip or something or got jammed, I’d be kicking myself.”

Trevino told reporters on March 15 that he could catch against the Mariners. 

“He’s a pretty tough kid,” Francona said. “He’s in the tub every morning at 6:00 am.”

The clock is ticking on Spencer Steer’s ability to be ready on opening day. He was scheduled to start throwing on March 18. 

“We haven’t closed the door out of respect for a kid, who has never been on the DL or IL (injured list). He’s working his ass off. Let’s let him do his thing because he’s getting after it. I mean really getting after it. If it’s not the right thing, we’re not going to do it. He’s shagging for guys. He’s the cutoff man. I want to give him every chance we possibly can.

To date, Steer hasn’t been in a Cactus League game since March 2. He has been hitting soft tosses in the batting cages. 

“For Steer, the challenge will be, we were able to get Candy (Jeimer Candelario) caught up pretty quick with the wisdom tooth. This is a guy trying to get the shoulder strong. You can’t just throw 50 at bats at him or you’re going to undo what you did. There’s ways to do it. Nowadays there is the trajectory machine. He can hit all day. It’s not a game but it’s a hell of a lot better than some coach throwing to you.”