TORONTO -- Quinn Priester managed to show quality control by producing his first ever major-league outing without a free pass Sunday afternoon. He focused on competing in the zone and making opposing hitters earn their way on base; however, he struggled with his efficiency, especially when utilizing his sinker in the Pirates' 5-4 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.
Priester, who was added to the taxi squad Saturday before officially being recalled from Class AAA Indianapolis on Sunday, allowed four runs on eight hits with three strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings. Priester said he felt good about his slider usage, but there was plenty of hard contact against the sinker, as it was put in play eight times and was tagged for four of the Blue Jays' eight hits. Danny Jansen had two of those -- one on a sinker down in the zone in the first inning and another on a pitch down the middle in the third. George Springer also took advantage of one down the pipe in the fourth and Davis Schneider connected on the outer edge in the fifth.
"Just got to execute better," said Priester, who turned to his slider 40 times while going to the sinker on 32 occasions. "Whether that's using the outer half or getting the sinker down. We just got to execute better and I probably could have mixed with it better as well."
Priester felt as if the sinker was consistent. The location wasn't.
"I think it was just when I missed my spots, that's when they were able to capitalize," he said. "And I think early, they recognized that I wanted to use it and kind of started to cheat to that pitch and there was an opportunity to throw more changeups I think."
Derek Shelton said he thought the sinker got up and got flat on Priester. Because of that, there were more fly balls rather than the ground balls the sinker should induce.
"I think we know that when he’s at his best, the sinker is a pitch he puts on the ground," Shelton said. "There were just fly balls today. The sinker got a little side to side. He didn’t walk anybody and I think, even what we saw with Mitch, with really elite stuff they foul off a ton of pitches and when they fouled them off, they ended up getting back into their counts.
"The big thing you have to take away is he has to put the ball on the ground. The sinker has got to be a pitch he effectively uses. I think we saw that for the first couple of innings and then it just flattened out as he got through the outing.”
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