Homer Bailey
 

Gave up an Eric Miltonesque 5 H and 4 ER in 5.1 IP for Class A Bakersfield. To his credit, he did have 7 K and 0 BB.

In 8.2 innings for the actual Reds in spring training, he's given up 13 H and 5 er.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be in the rotation because Leake has given up 21 H in 13 innings while only striking out 3 (yikes), but is anyone worried?

Re: Homer Bailey
 

I've always understood it's fairly common for big leaguers to take a beating when pitching against the lower levels minor leaguers.

Usually they're going up there hacking at everything so you can't set up pitches quite like you can in the bigs. I feel like the K/BB ratio is a much better indicator.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

its spring training so i am not worried. if i recall correctly Bronson got lit up one game last year. he replied that he threw almost all fastballs. why? because he wasn't trying to win a spring training game. he was simply building up his arm strength for the regular season. thats what he felt spring training was for, getting ready for when the games actually count. for guys who are already on the team i care very little about their spring training stats.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Spring training stats are rarely anything to get excited about one way or the other. Excuses/reasons like 'I'm working on location' get tossed around to explain them and half the time its true while the other half [see Harang, Aaron] are just covering the truth.

Over his first 14 innings he's given up 18 hits and 9 er it might be something that trends badly, but until then I won't worry much and neither should you.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Since you asked, I'm not worried.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

In spring training, I really only worry about soreness, tightness, grimacing, noticeable limps (lisps not so much), or open wounds.

Command and normal movement are nice as the spring winds down and pitchers quit working on stuff in lieu of focusing more on performance but absent a significant loss of velocity, spring is for smelling the flowers not worrying over counting stats.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Not worried. Also, I must have misread the tweet from fay, though it said 0 ER. Need to check my eyesight I guess.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Not worried. Baker said Bailey was throwing the minor league game so he could try out a few new things. Looks like the experiment backfired, and now Bailey will get back to basics when pitching to the Big Boys.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

If there were to be concern expressed based on spring results that concern would have to go almost all of the starters. Volky is behind and nuke lalooshing minor leaguers, cueto dealing with the forearm thing, leake and arroyo and bailey all been hit hard at times, really only wood has been consistently decent. My takeaway? It's spring in arizona and they will hopefully look more themselves when they come north. We also never know what they are working on in any given set of outings that may be more important than certain results. For instance, I thought I read that cincy was working with bailey on something today, dunno what it was.

My random thoughts anyway.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

7 Ks and 0 BBs. Not sure anything backfired. It is spring and the time to work on things.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Not concerned at all. Now if he would have walked a bunch of hitters to go along with no K's, maybe then I would have been slightly concerned, if that.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

He threw strikes and came away healthy. All good. Hits come and go, especially with a class A defense behind you and facing a bunch of guys who are completely geared to face you.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

I'm much more concerned when a Josias Manzanillo has a great spring (like he did for the Reds in 2003) and makes the team. When they landed in Cincinnati, Josias lost the smoke and mirrors and gave up more hits (and probably runs as I remember) than outs. He was so good in spring training and soooo bad once the season began.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

Watched part of that game. Was surprised to see Bailey there (pitching to Corky). Saw him give up a homer. It was more of a long fly ball that was taken out with favorable wind as opposed to a blast.

Re: Homer Bailey
 

He pitched ten innings for the Reds and had a K/9=10.13, a BB/9= 3.37 and a HR/9=5.91. Seven homers and 21 hits in 10 innings (59 TBF). :eek: