Arizona Diamondbacks Spring Training Notes: March 21, 2021
Here are updates from Diamondbacks spring training….
Reliever Tyler Clippard received the results of the MRI on his shoulder Sunday morning. “I’m bummed. Disappointed. I have a shoulder capsule sprain and have to be shut down for six weeks. It’s disappointing, because I’ve never had a serious injury, but I do now.” The injury was not something that had been building over time, either. “It just popped up, and that’s the most frustrating thing about this whole situation. I’m trying to pinpoint what happened, but I felt great arm-wise. I’ve felt discomfort before but have always worked through it. In Maryvale, it came out of nowhere.” The tension in his shoulder was something where he felt like he could rotate his arm and loosen it up. But rotating his shoulder didn’t take care of it. He said it wasn’t really painful but felt weak.
Clippard will be shut down completely for six weeks. This means that there will be no throwing of any type. He is to rest and recuperate. Thankfully, surgery was never brought up in any way.
Manager Torey Lovullo sounded just as disappointed as Clippard. “Any time one of your players gets banged up and has to step away for a while, it’s tough.” Lovullo continued, “It’s frustrating. I feel for him.” He also said, “The types of conversations I’ve had with him over the past couple of hours haven’t been easy, but we have to face the reality of it. It’s a tough blow. But once again, we’re going to find somebody who’s going to step in that role and get the job done. We have more-than-capable guys who can step up and get the job done. Who they are, we’re still evaluating.”
Diamondbacks Spring Training Player Notes
Left-handed pitcher Madison Bumgarner “looked like he was attacking the zone in typical Bum style.” He was “trying to incorporate a couple of new thoughts and ideas” into his approach on the mound. “He’s going to get big outs no matter what. (Madison) wanted to fine-tune some things and looked really good out there today.” He did several quick pitches, something he wanted to try out. It is something that can goof up timing for hitters. “It changes the entire package and entire equation.”
Madison felt “pretty good” about his outing in the B-game on Sunday. “We tried a lot of new things. That’s why we wanted to use the B-game atmosphere.” He said that since they were “stepping outside of the box,” the B-game was a “good environment to be in to do those kinds of things.” He continued, “It felt good. Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a transition, really.” One of those new things was quick pitching. He wanted to see if he could “count on that” in a game. “I’m just trying to incorporate a lot of different things. Pitching is disrupting timing, and hitting is timing. (I’m) doing whatever I can do to try to be as good as I can.”
The Quick Pitch
Quick pitching he’s something he’s seen a lot of guys do, so he figured he’d give it a try this spring. “I played with Johnny (Cueto), who’s the best at it. I feel like I have a good enough feel that I can do that stuff. It’s just that I have yet to do it in a game. I’ve done it playing around on the side sometimes, but I haven’t brought it into a game. Honestly, I think it makes too much sense not to do if you can do it.”
“I don’t know where we’ll go after this, but it’s something I’ll be playing with.”
Postgame Reflections
The Diamondbacks played an exhibition game Sunday against the Chicago White Sox. They held a 4-0 lead going into the ninth but ended up tying the Pale Hose, 4-4. Lovullo said after the game, “It was a good day for us. We played really clean baseball until the final three outs.”
The strong performance from some of the “secondary relief options” made the Clippard news sting a little less. This includes Kevin Ginkel, Jeremy Beasley, Stefan Crichton, and Joe Mantiply. “Guys went out and executed. They made pitches (while) knowing that they’re in some heavy competition. I think the spirit of competition brings out a little bit extra in everybody.”
Taylor Clarke had “four crisp, clean innings (of) pounding the zone.” Lovullo thought “he did an unbelievable job (when) one pitch behind in the count of locating some secondary stuff that got him right back into the count. That’s an automatic trigger to the hitter. When you see a 1-0 breaking ball or changeup, it immediately puts you on the defensive, because you don’t know what’s coming next. When you feel the pressure of a pitcher landing that type of stuff, it automatically sways the advantage back to the pitcher. Taylor took it from there. He got back into counts when he needed to. It was a complete outing.”
Main Photo:
Embed from Getty Images
Players/Managers Mentioned:
Tyler Clippard, Torey Lovullo, Madison Bumgarner, Kevin Ginkel, Johnny Cueto, Jeremy Beasley, Stefan Crichton, Joe Mantiply, Taylor Clarke
