LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The Braves had a pair of split-squad games Friday against the Cardinals and Phillies, but the most important pitches of the day for the Braves were thrown three hours earlier, in a 10 a.m. simulated game on a back field at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.
On Field 5, the John Smoltz field – Braves back fields are named for franchise greats – veteran reliever Jason Grilli and young starter Mike Foltynewicz threw in simulated-game conditions. Grilli, exactly eight months after rupturing his left Achilles tendon, threw 20 pitches in one inning.
Grilli gave up a couple of home runs to Tyler Flowers and power-hitting third-base prospect Austin Riley, while Foltynewicz looked sharp and kept the ball down in the strike zone in two innings against lesser minor leaguers.
Not that results were overly important for either. It’s a sim game, the next step in the rehab process for each pitcher.
“Felt good,” Grilli said. “Have a couple of things, timing-wise, that’s off a little bit. But that’s baseball activity. I’m in shape, and now it’s time to get the rhythm and timing down. … It’s a little longer offseason for me, because it’s the first time I faced a hitter in eight months.
“My breaking ball was way off. You’ve got to throw all your pitches to get ready. It’s hard to get everything going in 20 pitches. My bullpen (before the inning) felt more in sync. Again, it’s just more getting in baseball shape.”
Foltynewicz, recovering from September surgery to remove part of a rib after developing blood clots in his pitching arm, threw two 20-pitch simulated innings, one before and one after the Grilli inning.
“It felt awesome out there,” Foltynewicz said. “Just put a smile on my face to go out there and be healthy, arm feel good and actually be around the strike zone with all my pitches. So it was an awesome feeling out there today.”
The hard-throwing right-hander appeared to have good velocity and location of pitches.
“My fastball command this whole spring training hasn’t been right there, and I think I was around the area where I wanted to throw,” he said. “A couple of pitches I got a little excited and tried to amp up, but other than that I was around the zone.
“I got a couple of 2-2 groundouts, 3-2 ground outs. Just out there having fun, but at the same time I was getting mentally focused, how to pitch guys and reading the swing. It was definitely fun. Really glad to be back out there.”
Foltynewicz came to camp a couple of weeks behind other pitchers, so he hasn’t been mentioned as a candidate for the opening-day rotation. He might need a couple of extra weeks on a minor league rehab assignment when the season begins, but if Friday was any indication he could be pushing for a rotation spot in the early season.
Grilli has said, since the day after his July injury at Colorado in a game during the final weekend before the All-Star break, that he would be back and ready for opening day. This despite plenty of skeptics who believed – some still do — it would take a pitcher his age to come back from surgery for a ruptured Achilles.
“I feel good,” Grilli said after his simulated inning. “I don’t know how many more times I can tell you I feel good. Confidently, I know when I’m ready. I don’t know — first outing, you don’t put too much heaviness on that. Like I said, things are coming along as I anticipated.”
