Blue Jays Conner Greene struggles in first spring outing

Promising pitching prospect Conner Greene struggled in his first Grapefruit League outing yesterday surrendering five earned runs in an inning of work versus the Philadelphia Phillies.

Conner Greene lit up the radar gun but it wasn’t enough yesterday as the 21-year old was shelled by the Phillies bats. Greene managed to hit 100 mph on the radar and was consistently dealing at 97/98 mph throughout his inning of work.

The young prospect fanned two but also scattered four hits for five runs in a lopsided defeat. Greene looked noticeably bulkier than last season having put on 25 pounds of muscle working out with Aaron Sanchez during the offseason in Dunedin. Here’s hoping Greene follows in his new buddies career path to the majors.

Greene split last season between single-A (Dunedin) and double-A (New Hampshire) making 15 starts for Dunedin registering a 2.90 earned run average fanning 51 in 77.1 innings of work. Once getting the promotion to New Hampshire, Greene struggled notching an inflated 4.19 earned average in 12 starts striking out 48 in 68.2 innings on the bump.

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The pitcher who dabbles in acting failed to make the Baseball America Top 100 list but did come in at 12th on the Jays Journal Top 30 prospect rankings. The only Blue Jays pitcher to crack the BA Top 100 was Sean Reid-Foley who ranked 75th.

The 6’3″ hurler will presumably start the season in New Hampshire but could be worthy of a September call-up if he continues to progress as he climbs through the ranks. There is no questioning he has the stuff but the young hurler needs to fine tune his secondary arsenal to compliment his blazing fastball.

Next: Toronto Blue Jays 2017 top prospects: #12 Conner Greene

The native of California will look for redemption in his next Grapefruit League start in the coming days.