My last post was Wednesday night so I figured I'd let a couple days go by in order to have more things to write about, hence adding a little suspense for the readers. Are you full of suspense yet? Thursday was the first full day of practice with the rest of the Spring Training guys. There are exactly 104 people in Extended Spring Training right now which is not a small number. Kind of tells you there is a lot of depth with Blue Jays, making the road to the show a lot harder. But no one said it was going to be easy. Thursday's practice was short and sweet. We split up between position players and pitchers, then those pitchers and position players were split up into three more groups: blue, red, and grey. I'm in the blue group so when we separate after stretching, we stay on field one after we throw to work on bunt plays, pick-offs, and pitcher fielder practice (PFP). Once we were done with that, the blue group position players come over to hit batting practice which means the most thrilling part of the day occurs..... shagging. Pitchers who are throwing, always throw after the first group so that catchers can hit in the first group and pitchers will be done around same time as BP.
Friday was another exciting day for me because I got to throw a bullpen and I would be seeing Kristina later. Same thing happened as the previous day though. What people don't understand is that baseball is a repetitive sport and having a routine is key. So Friday we stretched, threw, talked about bunt defense, hit, and after the first group I headed over to the bullpen to polish up on my curve and slider. I had a pretty good bullpen, fastball had good tilt and came out of my hand fairly well. I'm still struggling with curveball and slider but they look a lot better than last year. The slider didn't exist and the curveball now has tighter spin but I need to get on top more and be more consistent with it. After the bullpen all the pitchers did gassers for conditioning which was difficult for me. I had just thrown a bullpen so I was a little tired, but I was also dizzy from the heat.
After the running was over I got a pretty sweet surprise in my locker. There hanging on the side was a number 20 jersey with my last name on the back which was awesome. So I wore it for a little bit then took a cold shower to cool off from the day. Later on I went on a date with above mentioned Kristina, and saw American Reunion which was hilarious. We then walked over to BJ's and split a pizza.
Jersey waiting for me in locker
Saturday was the longest day so far. At first it was kind of chilly until the game started. We did the same thing as the previous two days which is no surprise but after conditioning there was a simulated game for some of the pitchers facing live hitters. I got lucky because coach put me on the radar gun duty, which is probably slightly better than bat boy duty. The game was going by fairly quickly until the fourth inning then went downhill from there but luckily we only played six and a half innings. I mean I'm not complaining or anything, it was just a long hot day.
That was pretty much how the past three days went. A lot of stretching, throwing, PFP work, batting practice, bullpens, and conditioning. I also started my workouts which is exciting because I hadn't worked out all week and I'm ready to get back at it. Well my first time facing live batters and our first games against another team are Monday so I will have something other than PFP and BP to talk about. Stay tuned.
Jose Bautista during Spring Training
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