Starting pitchers with experience may find a Spring Training game challenging.
In order to be ready for the arduous season ahead, they need to increase the number of pitches they throw and want to refine some of them. Their competitive side wants to record a zero in each inning they pitch, even though the stat line is meaningless in the end.
On Tuesday, Zac Gallen failed to achieve the latter. In two and a third innings, he gave up two runs on five hits and a walk in Arizona’s 2-2 draw with San Diego. The D-backs star was happy with his day’s work, though.
“I felt OK; just obviously working on stuff, a lot of fastball curveball, trying to get those two pitches right,” Gallen stated. “Obviously, playing a team in your division is a little different. While you don’t want to lend out too much of your hand, you nevertheless want to finish the work.”
Sending his ace out in an exhibition game against a division rival didn’t worry manager Torey Lovullo because the D-backs won’t play the Padres in a real game until the first week of May. Gallen threw his fastball and curveball on all but four of his 45 pitches, which helped.
“He’s working really with two pitches and didn’t give the full arsenal; it’s just an experienced mindset,” said Lovullo. “He wants to avoid exposing too much of his hand. It just serves to highlight his intelligence and broad perspective.”
“You’re going to have to face the division teams,” Gallen stated. “Red zone games aren’t exactly something you can play all season long. You need to prepare to leave. I have to come up with new strategies for getting folks out and use Spring Training as a teaching tool.”
In 2023, Gallen utilized his fastball and curveball on 72% of his pitches; but, in preparation for 2024, he has been honing them. Although he “wasn’t too thrilled” with his Tuesday fastball command, he liked the way the curveball performed.
In the first inning, Gallen gave up doubles to Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr., but he got away without giving up a run. After recording two quick outs in the second, the right-hander moved ahead of Kyle Higashioka and walked him. Both of San Diego’s runs were scored by Jackson Merrill, the Padres’ No. 2 prospect and No. 12 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list, who followed with a home run.
“The homer I’m not necessarily mad about,” he replied. “The child took a good swing, and even though I wasn’t pitching very well, I was in the strike zone. The two-out, two-strike walk is an issue that needs to be addressed. There will be hits, runs, and other incidents of that nature. That’s just the way things are. What I look at is the other things that I have control over.”
Gallen is aware that the next time he faces the Padres, he will be equipped with his whole arsenal. Although some pitchers find it unpleasant to play against a division rival during Spring Training, he thinks there are advantages to playing in Cactus League games as opposed to replicating one at the team’s facilities.
“There’s a competitiveness that comes out in Spring Training that you can’t really replicate on the back fields facing your teammates,” Gallen stated. It allows you to assess how well your current material is holding up and gauge how similar you are to the hitters in that kind of situation in terms of feel and material.
If I’m consistently backing up third base with my curveball, then perhaps it’s not the best pitch, even though I can go out there and say I feel very great about it and we can look at the numbers and all that stuff. I thought I had made some pretty good swings, takes, offerings, and the like, and I thought, “Well, this is starting to come together.”
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