Blue Jays top Yankees behind Miguel Castro, Offense: Game Notes and Grades

After an off-day on Monday, the Toronto Blue Jays were back in action on Tuesday night, facing the C.C. Sabathia and the New York Yankees under the lights in Tampa. And for the first time all spring, the games are starting to feel a little bit more real against an opponent we will get to see quite a bit of once the regular season comes around.

With a 4-2 win over the Yankees, the Blue Jays are also hoping that the results carry through to the regular season as well.

The Blue Jays got four solid innings of work out of Drew Hutchison in his longest outing of the spring, with the right-hander allowing 2 runs on 4 hits with a walk and a pair of strike-outs. After a clean first inning, control issues got to Hutchison with one-out in the second inning, giving up a walk and back-to-back singles before buttoning down and getting out of the inning with just one run allowed.

Hutchison would again have a quick third innings, but made a mistake up and away to Mark Texeira, who muscled a ball out to left-center field for the second run of the game for the Yankees.

However, the game was all about the consistent hard-hitting of the Blue Jays line-up, as Toronto put together four doubles and a triple through the first six innings of play. From that point, the benches opened up.

Game Notes:

• It was nice to see Jose Reyes employing his wheels in this game, collecting both a triple and a stolen base in the contest. In particular, he made a nice heads-up play on the stolen base, when the ball ricocheted off his arm and into shallow left field and he beat Didi Gregorious to third base on a pure hustle play.
•  Can someone please get Devon Travis a permanent number? Floating around with number 77 this spring, the Blue Jays second baseman of the future is doing everything he can to earn the job today. In Tuesday’s game, he hit the ball hard twice, collecting an RBI single and a double, while forcing a walk in his third plate appearance. He’s played some solid defense all spring and he’s essentially earned the job.
• What more can you say about Miguel Castro? Coming into the game in relief of Hutchison, the young flamethrower threw 2.2 innings of perfect baseball, striking out 2 in the process. His heat was clocking in at 96-98 MPH, and Castro was matching it with a change-up that was a good 10-12 MPH slower and dropping. However, the single greatest moment came when he nearly broke the wrist of Gregorius, who was unable to check his swing on a biting slider that broke from the middle of the plate and bore right in on his hands for a strike.
• Dayan Viciedo got the start in left field tonight, and showed just how inconsistent he is going to be at the plate should he make the Jays. After a big double in the second inning off of Sabathia, Viciedo looked outmatched and overwhelmed with a four-pitch strike-out against reliever Justin Wilson. He then came back and ripped a double to right-center against righty Domingo German.
• I have never heard a mitt pop as hard as when Roberto Osuna throws his fastball. Just explodes.

Grades:

Next: Blue Jays option Ryan Tepera and Matt Hague to Buffalo

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