Roansy Contreras flashes and Termarr Johnson homers twice Pittsburgh Pirates fall to Toronto Blue Jays 8-4

CONTRERAS FLASHES DESPITE STAT LINE

Roansy Contreras's final line wasn't anything special. Two innings pitched, four hits, two earned runs, and one walk. That being said, there were promising takeaways from his time on the mound.

For starters, Contreras was mostly around the plate on Monday with 21 of his 35 pitches as strikes with another handful of pitches just missing the plate including several sliders. This early in spring training, pitchers are not necessarily looking to strike every batter out or even necessarily trying to avoid contact but instead, are focusing on getting their control down and focusing more so on the process than the end result.

Another encouraging takeaway for Contreras is that his velocity is up compared to last year. His fastball topped out at 96.2 mph while his average for the game across 17 fastballs was 95.2, almost a full mile per hour higher than it was last year at 94.3.

His slider and curve ball also saw increased velocity at 85.3 mph and 79.6 mph respectively.