Tyler Glasnow made his Triple-A debut last night, and while he didn’t see the success he showed at the Double-A level, he also didn’t exactly disappoint.
Glasnow looked to establish his fastball early, while mixing in the breaking ball as the outing went along. Glasnow credited much of this to not having his best stuff in the start.
He gave up a career-high nine hits, with six of those coming on the second time through the order, after just one hit on the first trip through. Much of this could be due to the amount of fastballs that the right-hander threw. In the first three innings, I counted three off-speed pitches.
“I think that today was just one of those days, and it was kind of [tough] that it was in my debut,” Glasnow said. “Nothing really felt so good and I honestly only had a fastball. Even with that, the velocity was down on that. I think that some of it had to do with some different adrenaline coming out here. I am glad that I got it out of the way, but it was just one of those starts where nothing was working.”
Glasnow said that something just felt different on Saturday than the start before. However, he gave Tony Sanchez a great deal of credit for keeping him calm and getting him through relatively unharmed most innings.
While he pitched to contact in the outing, Glasnow also missed plenty of bats as well with seven strikeouts in 5.1 innings of work. Once he started working in the curve ball in the fourth inning, those numbers really started to pile up. This includes striking out the side in the fifth inning.
“The fifth inning was alright,” Glasnow said. “I think that I just got hit around a lot. I left the ball over the zone a lot. I usually have my velocity to back it up and tonight it just wasn’t there. It could just be the time of the season, but it could have been a lot worse.”
Glasnow saw the fastball in the 94 to 96 range consistently, which is slightly down from where he was in recent starts. The pitch did fall as low as 91 and 92 at times, but was more so in the aforementioned range. Even with this, the fastball appeared simply overpowering the first time through the order, but after the opposition saw him that first time, the contact followed. The fastball was moved around fairly well the first time through the order as well, but it seemed get much more plate when he ran into issues.
Despite the ankle injury earlier in the season, Glasnow said that is not an issue for him anymore. While the ankle was taped for the start on Saturday, he said that he did not feel it at all in the outing.
Additionally, he said that the recovery from the injury was hard, based on how well he was rolling beforehand. However, he was also able to see some of the positives, which included getting a breather in the middle of the season.
“I think that it was frustrating because before I got hurt, it felt really good,” Glasnow said. “I had a couple of starts before that and then I got hurt. That was annoying trying to come back from that with little aches and pains. I am back to feeling really good again and getting the delivery down.”
While Glasnow admitted that he did not have his best stuff in his debut, he looks to be better next time out and getting on a similar roll in Triple-A that he was in Altoona.
