Red Sox: Tyler Thornburg tosses scoreless inning in return
By Sean Penney
Boston Red Sox right-handed reliever Tyler Thornburg tossed a shutout inning in his return to the mound in a minor league game.
In what has been a horrendous spring for Tyler Thornburg thus far, any positive results from the right-hander would be a welcome sign to the Boston Red Sox.
Expected to fill the eighth inning void in Boston’s bullpen, Thornburg has looked nothing like a lights-out setup man that can serve as a bridge to closer Craig Kimbrel. Based on how he’s pitched this spring, manager John Farrell may be reluctant to use him in mop up duty, let alone the late innings of a tight game.
In two appearances this spring Thornburg has lasted only 1 1/3 innings, coughing up seven earned runs for a putrid 47.25 ERA. Opposing batters teed off on him for seven hits and drew a pair of walks, giving Thornburg a staggering 6.75 WHIP.
It’s a tiny sample size, yet more than enough to convince the Red Sox that something wasn’t right. The team cited Thornburg’s struggles to adapt to their shoulder strength and conditioning program as the culprit behind his poor performance, rather than an injury. Thorburg was shut down and hadn’t appeared in a game since May 1.
Until now.
The 28-year old was back on the mound Friday in minor league game. Improvement was apparent out of the gate, as Thornburg struck out the first batter he faced.
Then he followed that by striking out the next guy. Back-to-back K’s with both batters going down swinging!
Thornburg finished his scoreless outing with those two strikeouts and one walk allowed. He tossed 20 pitches, 13 of which were for strikes. Sure, it was only against Single-A competition. So what? The take away here is that Thornburg was able to get back on the mound and find some success to build on.
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The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier tweeted that scouts clocked Thornburg’s fastball at 91-94 mph. He averaged 94 mph with his fastball last year, per FanGraphs, so being able to touch 94 after sitting out for three weeks is a promising sign.
Thornburg has a history of poor performances in spring training, owning a 6.79 ERA and 1.62 WHIP over 54 1/3 career spring innings. This year’s brutal results have inflated those numbers a bit, although he wasn’t sharp in any of the previous four springs he spent in the Milwaukee Brewers organization. Some pitchers simply need more time to ramp up – that’s what spring training is for!
Assuming he really is healthy, Thornburg should be fine once the games begin to count. He’s coming off a career year with the Brewers in which he posted a 2.15 ERA and 12.1 K/9.
Next: Bold predictions for 2017
Boston’s revamped bullpen should be one of the many strengths of this Red Sox team. Expect Thornburg to be a big part of that as one of the more reliable late-inning arms in the league.