Steven Brault was stretched out as a starter in spring training but also knew he had a good shot at beginning the season in the bullpen.
Things didn’t exactly work out that way — at least for now. After throwing three innings and winning the season opener in Detroit, Brault made a spot start against the Cincinnati Reds Thursday in place of Joe Musgrove, who is on the disabled list for a shoulder strain. Brault has a 1.13 ERA in his two appearances.
“I’ve been saying this year my whole goal is to be completely flexible as possible because I knew coming in this was a possibility,” Brault said. “It's kind of back and forth, so for now [so be] it. I had a good start in my spot start or whatever it is, so we'll see what happens going forward.”
Over five innings Thursday, Brault allowed one run, threw two wild pitches (one allowing a run to score), issued four walks and struck out four, including twice fooling Reds first baseman Joey Votto. And while he felt a bit tired at the end of his 80-pitch outing, he made one thing clear: He wants to be a starter.
“I think a lot of people do,” Brault said. “Not everybody does. But it’s definitely something that fits my repertoire and my mentality.”
Brault seemed especially proud to have struck out Votto, who ranked ninth in MLB last season with a 11.7 percent strikeout rate, according to FanGraphs. Votto was hitless Thursday.
“Votto, he’s a guy that we game-planned for, that our game plan worked, and it’s nice, obviously, when things come to fruition like that,” Brault said.
Brault struck out Votto in the third and fifth innings, on his second and third times at the plate. Both times were six-pitch at-bats, and both times Brault got him to whiff on 91-mph four-seam fastballs.
“I think we were just able to open him up a little bit by attacking inside, and it kind of made him hesitant when we went fastball away,” Brault said. “We struck him out the same pitch twice. It was almost the same sequence of pitches, really, that we went to to get him. We went in, went out, went in, went out, kind of back and forth. And then the idea is we get him looking in, and then we can go fastball away, and there’s hesitation, and that’s when we thought we could get him. So it was cool that it worked. It obviously won’t always work. I still don’t want to throw eight pitches every time I face him, but I did what I could tonight.”
Elizabeth Bloom: ebloom@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1750 and Twitter @BloomPG.
First Published: April 6, 2018, 9:30 p.m.
