It’s been a little while since there has been any Terp news of note, so when baseball SID Joey Flyntz e-mailed me this I figured, heck why not?
Some of you may remember I had somewhat of an unhealthy blogging obsession earlier this year with Cecil, chronicling all of his starts (see: here, and here, oh and also here). Well, after early success, he hasn’t been as good.
Prior to last night’s game at Camden Yards, Cecil had given up a total of 12 runs in two starts and had watched his ERA balloon up to 6.23.
He had really struggled with his location, and not just with walks (he had eight in those two starts) but also with leaving his pitches up in the zone. In those two starts, against the Yankees and the Reds, he gave up two home runs and four doubles.
But last night, pitching in front of friends and family, Cecil was great, scattering four hits over six innings while striking out five and walking just two. He ran into trouble in the second thanks to a Luke Scott single and back-to-back walks, but got Cesar Izturis to ground into a fielder’s choice and cruised from there.
Read on as I take a look at what Cecil’s chances are of staying in the rotation.
It has been an interesting season for the Blue Jays and their pitching staff. Last year’s solid duo of Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum has still yet to throw an inning, and other contributors like Jesse Litsch and Casey Janssen haven’t made a dent either.
But they did find some solid young talent such as Cecil, Ricky Romero, and potentially Marc Rzepczynski, although he has only made one start.
At this point, Cecil has as good a shot at any to stay in the rotation, it’s clear he has the stuff and the potential, now it’s just a matter of putting it all together.
The Jays are starting to fade from the playoff race and are rumored to be shopping ace Roy Halladay, normally this is the time when teams like to test their young pitchers, although they probably won’t take the kid’s gloves off Cecil when it comes to innings.
The rosters expand in a little over a month and if, for some reason, he struggles in the starting role, he can still be an asset in the bullpen, all of which makes it unlikely he will be sent back down.
But right now he can sit back and try not to get stressed about life as a player on the fringe, and if he keeps pitching like he did last night, he could find himself off the fringe very soon.
Michael Lemaire was the 2009 Terrapin baseball beat writer. He can be reached at lemairedbk@gmail.com