Miguel Castro #51 of the Toronto Blue Jays checks the signs in the seventh inning against the New York Yankees n April 8, 2015 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City.Elsa/Getty Images
The third game of the season has not even been played and already the Toronto Blue Jays uncertain bullpen situation is starting to be a worry.
On Thursday, a couple of hours before the Blue Jays were to play the New York Yankees here in the rubber game of their opening regular-season series, manager John Gibbons said that the decision has been made to back Brett Cecil out of the full-time closer's role for the time being.
Gibbons said he delivered the message to the lefthander earlier in the day during a meeting.
"He's not sharp," Gibbons said during his pre-game meeting with reporters. "I told him he can expect to come in the seventh, the eighth inning. If it ends up stacking up and he's the guy in the ninth, then so be it. Try to get him a little sharper."
Gibbons said, for the next little while anyway, he expects to be using 20-year-old Miguel Castro as the Toronto closer with Roberto Osuna as Toronto's righthanded setup reliever in the seventh or eighth innings.
Castro, who made the team out of spring training despite never having pitched above Single-A, has so far turned heads with his composure in very limited exposure at the Major League Baseball level.
Cecil's quick hook is kind of surprising given that it came after Cecil only made his first appearance in the closer's role Wednesday night, brought into the game in the eighth inning with the Blue Jays holding a 3-1 lead over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
But Cecil was brutal pitching in unseasonably cold and wet conditions, retiring just one of four batters he faced, throwing a wild pitch and a hitting another Yankee batter.
Cecil then allowed a Chase Headley comebacker to smack off his wrist and deflect into left field that scored the winning runs in what amounted to a 4-3 New York win.
The 28-year-old Cecil, who was anointed as the new Blue Jays closer during spring training despite missing a couple weeks with a left shoulder issue, might have sealed his own fate when he admitted after Wednesday's game he still felt about "two weeks behind."
Gibbons said the admission caught him a bit off guard. "I'm a little surprised but that's reality, that's the way it looked," he said.
"With our rotation," Gibbons continued, "the bullpen's going to be very valuable because we've got some guys that can throw some innings but probably not a lot of guys that can go eight innings, complete that game."
During his outing on Wednesday, Cecil's velocity was noticeable down with his fastball tracking in in the high '80s. Gibbons said he wasn't that concerned about it, noting that Cecil's big pitch is still his curveball.
"He's a little short on that [his velocity]," Gibbons said. "That helps everybody but still his big pitch is his curveball. He was erratic, he was all over the place last night. So maybe that is something to it."