Most of the Astros’ OD players sat against a stout Blue Jays lineup
The Astros fielded a roster of mostly top tier prospects today against the Blue Jays’ mostly OD roster, with predictable results.
In the race for fifth starter/long reliever, one of those prospects, Colton Gordon staked a legitimate claim today. It wasn’t just his 3.2 innings, allowing only one run, (a homer to Bo Bichette) allowing two hits and a walk with three Ks. The fact that he got such a long look and looked legitimate against for-real major leaguers bodes well for his future somewhere on the Astros at some point in 2025.
Luis Contreras followed Gordon and continued to impress. Coming into the game Contreras has thrown five scoreless innings with a WHIP of .040. Today he allowed two cheap, infield singles in 1.1 innings but worked out of a fifth inning jam with two strikeouts, whiffing George Springer to end the threat.
Nick Hernandez didn’t exactly have a career performance following Contreras. He allowed four runs on a walk and three back-to-back doubles, including one to former Astros product Will Wagner. His three outs were all sharply hit balls.
The Astros offense did their damage in the third inning with three runs against the Jays’ ace Kevin Gausman. It started with a Jake Meyers, wind-aided homer and added two more on two singles, a walk, and two sac flies. Cam Smith added another single to his Spring resume with a Wee Willie Keeler, him-em-where-they-ain’t specialty to the vacated second baseman’s spot as the infield was shifted left. Skill or luck?
For the Shay Whitcomb fans out there, the fielding yips continue. He made an error at shortstop on a routine grounder. And after fielding a difficult grounder up the hole playing second, he then made a bad throw to first, although it was scored a single for Vlad Guerrero.
Possible backup catcher Cesar Salazar continues to exceed expectations offensively whenever he gets a chance at the big-league level, going 2-3 today. His Spring BA now sits at .333.
Former Astro Jake Bloss got a three inning save for the Jays, allowing no runs with five Ks. Former heart throb of Astros minor league fanboys, Joey Loperfido, was 0-3 with a strikeout but two well-struck flyouts. So today we got to see all three players traded in the Yusei Kikuchi trade, Wagner, Loperfido, and Bloss. And overall, they gave us some reason for regrets. But before you shed too many tears, today’s performance by Bloss lowered his Spring ERA to 9.00.
The Jays added a run in the seventh and two in the eighth against Blake Weiman and Misael Tamarez respectively to account for the final score of 8-3.