Tom Gorzelanny and Ian Snell appear to be headed in slightly different directions this spring.
Gorzelanny came into camp in very good shape, dropping 20 pounds from last season. He started off his spring season Friday with two scoreless innings against the Atlanta Braves and reportedly looked very sharp.
"It felt good, I felt strong out there," Gorzelanny told the Associated Press. "I want to prove to everybody that I do belong in this rotation and on this team."
Snell, meanwhile, allowed two unearned runs and walked two in his first outing on Thursday, though he struck out three. He is headed to the World Baseball Classic for a couple of weeks where he will pitch for Puerto Rico.
Snell is coming off the worst season of his career. He was 7-12 with a 5.42 ERA. He is also not that far removed from an elbow injury he had in the middle of last season which caused him to miss time.
Snell talked glowingly about new pitching coach Joe Kerrigan in today's Post-Gazette. Here's the thing, he's done so about the other pitching coaches who have been in Pittsburgh the last two years - Jim Colborn and Jeff Andrews.
There was also a very interesting quote in Chuck Finder's story about the adjustments being made.
"Mechanical. Not mental. I'm always there mentally. Mechanically, I was doing one thing wrong," Snell said in the P-G article. "He (Kerrigan) looked at the film one time. And that was it. Solved."
Snell might have the mechanical thing down, but the mental part remains in question. Anyone who has been around the Pirates more than a week knows that Snell has the tendency to go off. He lets his emotions get to him on the mound and he can also be less than polite in the clubhouse. I know because I've seen it first-hand.
Snell should be the last player to be going off to the WBC for a couple of weeks, basically unsupervised. He needs to get himself in check in a hurry if he wants any chance of keeping his spot in the rotation for the entire season.
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