Julio Teheran didn’t give up a run this spring training until Wednesday, in his fourth start, and though the outing against the Phillies was his roughest, he came away with a positive vibe.
“Every day is a chance to get better, and today I felt pretty good,” said the Braves veteran, who gave up six hits and two runs in five innings of a 5-3 win against the Phillies, the team he’s in line to face opening day March 29 at SunTrust Park.
“I got in trouble and had to work from the stretch; that’s something that we want to see before we get to the regular season – to see it and battle, make my pitches to get out. That’s something good to have to do before we go.”
He had to do it plenty, issuing a walk and hitting two batters to go with those six hits allowed. There were at least two Phillies on base in each of his five innings except the second, when he gave up a game-tying leadoff homer to his Colombian countryman Jorge Alfaro, 24, a catcher who hit .318 with five homers and an .874 OPS in 107 at-bats as a rookie in 2017.
“I don’t think he was as sharp as he has been,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of Teheran, who allowed six hits and three walks with five strikeouts in nine scoreless innings over three starts before Wednesday. “But it was kind of good to see him (induce) a big double play. He was battling, he was working. I could tell he was really focused and into it, that’s for sure.
“It looked like more than a spring training game to me, the way he was going about it. He was OK, he had to work but he did all right.”
Teheran retired the next three batters after the homer, then retired the first two batters in the third inning before walking Cesar Hernandez and hitting Odubel Herrera with a pitch. He got out of that situation by inducing a ground out from Pedro Florimon.
In the fourth inning, Teheran allowed a one-out single and hit Adam Rosales with a pitch before pitcher Ben Lively lined out to end the inning.
And in the fifth Teheran gave up consecutive singles to start the inning before doing damage control by getting Herrera to ground into a double play, limiting the Phillies to one run after Preston Tucker had given the Braves a 3-1 lead with an RBI double off the right-center wall in the second inning and a two-run, two-out homer over that wall in the fourth inning.
The two hit-by-pitches came on pitches that got away from Teheran, including a sinker that moved more than intended. But getting unexpected movement on the sinker and coming a too far inside while trying to move batters off the plate – these are issues that Teheran and the Braves don’t necessarily mind seeing from the four-time opening day starter and two-time former All-Star.
He admittedly hasn’t pitched inside enough in the past couple of seasons and wants to control that part of the plate from the outset in 2018, to let hitters know he’s going to be coming in.
“I don’t want to miss with any of those pitches, especially with two strikes,” he said. “I was trying to push him off (the plate) and the ball went a little bit in. The same thing with the righty, I was throwing the two-seamer and it was working really good today, it was moving a lot. To the point where I didn’t expect it to move like that and my last (inning) I got into a little trouble when I walked a couple of guys because it was moving a lot.”
But, he said, “As pitchers that’s the spot (inside part of the plate) you’ve got to control, you’ve got to let them know that you can control that side of the plate. My last couple of years I haven’t shown it that much, but I’m trying to get there and see how to work my other pitchers.”
About the Author
