Javiery Impressive

Javy Vazquez walked into the clubhouse this morning whistling with a big grin on his face.  Clearly Vazquez was excited to finally get on the mound in a game situation this afternoon. Flash to 1:05 ET and Vazquez is watching his first pitch of the 2010 spring training sail over the right field wall of George M. Steinbrenner field off the bat of Jimmy Rollins.  The pitch was an 86 mph fastball, either a very flat slider or two-seamer right down broadway and Rollins absolutely crushed it.  It definitely wasn’t the fresh start wearing a Yankees hat that Vazquez was looking for.  However, aside from the first pitch of the game, Vazquez couldn’t have asked for much more from his first outing.

Today Vazquez threw 26 pitches over 2 innings allowing 1 run on 1 hit, while striking out 4 and walking none.  While his stat line was good, stats aside (since they are very insignificant in spring training as noted by Jake Fochetta) Javy looked very impressive today.  Aside from the mistake in the first inning, Javy had practically flawless command throwing 17 strikes and 9 balls (4 of the balls just missed and another 2 or 3 were when he was way ahead in the count).  In addition to his great command, Javy looked very comfortable on the mound and was able to repeat his delivery consistently.  Javy was also able to throw all of his pitches for strikes, in many different situations, even showing he could take some off on both his fastball and changeup.  He was able to throw his curveball anywhere from 66 mph to 76 mph and was able to throw it at any time in an at bat.  To start off the 3rd inning Javy went to a full count on Ibanez before throwing a 67 mph curveball on the outer half to sit Ibanez down looking.  Later in the inning Vazquez was able to send Francisco back to the bench after he swung over the top of a 75 mph curveball.

With Vazquez’s wide array of pitches (4-seamer, 2-seamer, 2 changeups, curveball at any speed, and a slider) he has the ability to keep a hitter guessing.  If he can display the control that he did today and also continue to throw all of his pitches in any count, Vazquez has the potential to have a great year this year.  Throughout the remainder of spring training, look for Vazquez to continue working on varying the speeds of his pitches.  If he continues to keep his pitch count down, and display control all over the zone Vazquez will be the best 4 starter in the MLB by far.

What did you think of Javy’s performance today?  Will he be effective for the Yankees in the 2010 season?

Photo courtesy of Zimbio.com

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