FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Baseball evaluators love it when one of their fringe pitchers struggles in the spring. Not excessively, of course. Just enough to sweat a bit.
So when Juan Nicasio, a more real candidate than ever to break camp in the Pirates' rotation, put Minnesota runners at the corners in the first inning of what wound up a 2-0 victory at Hammond Stadium, all of the evaluating eyes perked up.
And the Twins, one by one, sat down:
"That felt good," Nicasio would tell me later, wholly failing at stifling a smile. "I felt like I could just strike everybody out.
Third inning, similar situation. Runners at second and third, one out. Quentin swinging through a sweeping curve, or something that looked like a curve. Arcia next, swinging through another slider.
Wait a minute, a curve?
"No, not really a curve," Nicasio explained. "More like a back-door slider. But it moves a little like a curve, so yeah."
So yeah: Fourth inning, with men again at the corners. Maybe just to mix things up, he lured Eduardo Nunez into a 4-6-3 double play with a sinker.
Come on, a sinker for a guy who pitched in relief?
"Yeah, but I pitched at Coors Field. You've got to have the two-seamer."
After a 1-2-3 fifth, Nicasio improved his staff-best spring numbers to 15 scoreless innings with 10 hits, 24 strikeouts and five walks. Eight of those Ks came on this day, five of them with a runner 90 feet from home.
His timing couldn't have been better, of course. Earlier in the day, back in Bradenton and by no means at all a coincidence, Neal Huntington went out of his way for the first time to stress that Nicasio is on even footing -- or close to even footing -- with Ryan Vogelsong and Jeff Locke to fill the rotation's fourth and fifth spots.
“We’ve still got two weeks to go. He’s thrown the ball very well in spring training,” the GM said of Nicasio. “We don’t want to say it’s a wide-open competition, yet at the same time we brought Juan here for a reason. We brought him here … so he could start or relieve, depending on what else we were able to do the rest of the offseason.”
He then cited the mythical sixth or 'depth' starter, which is how he'd been characterizing Nicasio until this day.
“We brought those three guys -- Locke, Nicasio and Vogelsong -- two of those three will be our fourth and fifth starters to start the season. I think you all know well enough we're going to need a sixth starter some time before we want to, and that's where it's great to have those guys ready to go”
PLAYING PEPPER
• David Freese, starting at third base, where he'll be expected to stay until Jung Ho Kang returns, muffed a fine throw from right fielder Danny Ortiz that should have caught Eduardo Escobar trying to stretch a hit into a triple. Freese angrily slammed his mitt in disgust.
• Starling Marte went 1 for 3 with a no-throw steal and is now 11 for 25 -- .440 -- for the spring. "I'm really, really ready," Marte said. "Right now." It certainly shows.
• Neftali Feliz followed Nicasio with two scoreless innings of relief, this with most of Minnesota's starting lineup still intact. Feliz isn't blowing anyone away -- three strikeouts in six one-inning appearances, one strikeout in this game -- but he's also allowed one run, four hits, and has yet to walk a batter.
