LAKELAND, Fla. – Eric Stults logged nearly 380 innings in 55 starts for the Padres during the past two seasons, and that durability tooks particularly attractive to the Braves right about now.
The veteran left-hander and fifth-starter candidate made his Braves debut Thursday with two solid, scoreless innings in a 6-4 Grapefruit League win over the Tigers. Stults gave up two hits — neither was hit hard — and induced a pair of inning-ending double-play grounders after a Braves error in each inning.
“The first time out in spring you don’t know what to expect,” said Stults, 35, “so my mindset is, I want to stay down in the zone and make them put the ball on the ground. For the most part, I was able to do that. Guys made some plays behind me to turn two, so that was nice.”
Stults is a non-roster signee competing for the fifth starter spot with Wandy Rodriguez, who didn’t look good in his debut Wednesday, and prospects Mike Foltynewicz and lefty Manny Banuelos, the latter of whom could start out instead in the bullpen as a long reliever.
If Mike Minor’s sore shoulder causes him to miss time, the Braves could go with two of the fifth-starter candidates to fill out the rotation. Either way, Stults is off to a good start in his bid for a spot.
“That’s a solid rotation guy,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of Stults, 35, who signed with the Braves in large part to work again with Roger McDowell, his Triple-A pitching coach a decade ago. “You can never have too much pitching, like we know from the past. And all of a sudden we get bad news, or possibility of bad news with Mikey, and you feel good that you have some depth in the rotation.”
After a fly ball bounced off the glove of center fielder Eury Perez with one out in the third, Stults gave up a J.D. Martinez single before getting Tyler Martinez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. After Aaron Westlake reached on an error by first baseman John Buck in the fourth inning, Stults got catcher James McCann to ground into a 5-4-3 double play.
“We got him behind the 8-ball twice, made some mistakes behind him,” Gonzalez said. “That’s a veteran guy, he didn’t panic and we turned two double plays.”
After posting a 3.93 ERA in a career-high 203 2/3 innings in 2013, Stults slipped to 8-17 with a 4.30 ERA in 176 innings last season. But he finished the season strong, going 5-4 with a 2.74 ERA and eight quality starts in his last 11 outings.
“I’m hoping to carry what I did last year into this year, but when you haven’t pitched for four or five months, you just never know what to expect once you get back out there,” said Stults, adding that he doesn’t have the luxury of just using the spring to get ready for the season.
Not when he’s trying to win a spot in the rotation and has no guarantees as a non-roster invitee.
“I don’t think I’m as sharp as I want to be a week from now, or even three or four weeks from now,” he said. “I think the main thing was just going out there and throwing strikes. In spring training you don’t want to walk guys. You still want to go out there and be aggressive….
“For me, I’ve got to think competition. I’m trying to earn a spot on this team, and we’ve got a lot of good pitchers going for spots on this roster. So it’s just going out and competing, but also getting my work in, being able to work on the the things I need to do, but also trying to get the results that I need to win a job on this team.”
