It hasn’t been a good spring for Jeurys Familia.
There have been questions about both his command and velocity throughout March, and he enters play today sporting a 6.43 ERA and having allowed 15 baserunners in only seven innings of work this spring. He allowed three runs and four hits in 2/3 of an inning against the Nationals on Thursday.
Despite the struggles, both Dan Warthen and Terry Collins remain unconcerned about their reliever, telling Adam Rubin of ESPN New York on Thursday Familia has been focusing on pitch selection and working on commanding the upper part of the strike zone with his fastball.
He’s been a bit of a mystery this spring. In fairness, the radar gun at Tradition Field has been reportedly slow all spring. But that gun has shown a steady uptick in Familia’s fastball velocity – it was as high as 96-97 mph in his last outing at home – so it’s clear Familia has been building all spring. Velocity is typically one of the last things to come for power arms in Spring Training, so this is no surprise. But his stuff in general has lacked the electricity it had last year to this point, not to mention his location has been generally poor overall.
With everything that has gone on with this staff, the fact Familia is healthy might be the most important thing for him right now. There is a lot of weight on his shoulders heading into the season, especially with so much uncertainty surrounding Vic Black right now. I’m pretty confident when the bell rings in ten days, Familia will be where he needs to be.
Just Mets 