Arizona Fall League Begins with Eight Blue Jays; And Other News

Sean Ochinko
Sean Ochinko

 

The eight Toronto Blue Jays dotting the roster of the Mesa Solar Sox got their Arizona Fall League season under way yesterday as the Solar Sox lost their season opener 9-3 to the Glendale Desert Dogs.

 

 

Only two Blue Jays’ farmhands saw action in the game as Dalton Pompey played center field and went 0/4 with a walk and a run while catcher Sean Ochinko was 0/2 coming in for starter Pedro Severino.

 

The Mesa roster also features starting pitchers Sean Nolin and Roberto Osuna (although we don’t know if either will be used in a starting role), relievers Blake McFarland and Arik Sikula, second baseman Jon Berti and outfielder Dwight Smith, Jr. Osuna is expected to start today’s game after he tweeted out that information in response to Gideon Turk’s question.

 

The Arizona Fall League is a great opportunity for the majors’ top prospects to play against each other and Pompey was in a lineup last night with Kaleb Cowart of the Angels, Addison Russell of the Cubs and he played against Corey Seager of the Dodgers.

 

Daniel Norris
Daniel Norris

 

In other Blue Jays news, top prospect Daniel Norris underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left (pitching) elbow to remove bone chips. The linked article suggests that Norris wasn’t at 100% when making his first major league start on September 25 and that a drop in velocity was due to the bone chips in his elbow. I could tell that Norris was favouring a curveball despite the general consensus that his slider is considered his best pitch and that could also be due to the injury. The usual recovery time for this type of surgery is six weeks and Norris is expected to be completely healthy by the time spring training opens up at the end of February.

 

Finally, the Blue Jays took advantage of having a few open spots on the 40-man roster by picking up right-handed reliever Bo Schultz off of waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks. Schultz is a hard-thrower who averaged 95.3 mph on his fastball in 2014 but made his major league debut only this year at the age of 28 back in March with the D-backs. Now 29, Schultz could play a role in the Blue Jays’ bullpen in 2015 as they expect to see several openings. Schultz only pitched eight innings with the Diamondbacks but made 23 starts with their Triple-A club in Reno, logging 135 1/3 innings, striking out 82 and walking 46.

 

Who are these players? Find out in The 2014 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook, now available as an ebook at Smashwords.com for $7.99 US. It’s coming soon to Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo and other fine retailers. You can purchase and preview the book at our Smashwords.com page! If you like us here,“like” us on Facebook!

The All-Star Break Supplement to the Minor League Handbook is also available at Smashwords.com for only $2 US! Get an update on how your favourite players have been doing this season as well as a report on the 2014 draft!

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