The Los Angeles Dodgers starting rotation received a boost on Wednesday with the return of Tony Gonsolin, who made his 2021 debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates after missing the first two months of the regular season due to right shoulder inflammation.
While some rust was to be expected, the outing nonetheless did not go Gonsolin’s way as he lasted only 1.2 innings and walked a career-high five batters. The right-hander threw 66 pitches and allowed one run on two hits with four strikeouts.
“Definitely not the way I wanted it to go,” Gonsolin said after the game. “Need to throw more strikes and can’t walk guys. I’ve got to throw more strikes.”
To Gonsolin’s defense, his start was derailed from the beginning by a lengthy rain delay that prevented him from taking the mound at the scheduled first pitch time.
“I was trying to stay loose a little bit, just keep moving around and not sit too long,” he said of attempting to deal with the conditions. “Ultimately, I don’t think it affected how I threw. I just have to pitch better.”
At the end of the day, Gonsolin felt he should have had better command of his pitches and did not want to make any excuses for his performance. “I feel like I can make a lot of excuses, but I would rather not do that,” Gonsolin said.
“Just throwing a lot of balls. I need to find the zone. I just competed through it and luckily only got out of there with one (run allowed). The bullpen threw great and really picked me up.”
Roberts: ‘Erratic’ Gonsolin lacked consistency
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts gave his assessment of Gonsolin’s 2021 debut and believes he simply didn’t execute on some of his pitches. “He just was erratic. He didn’t have command across the board,” Roberts said.
“I don’t think it was nerves, I think maybe some of the humidity and just the feel for the baseball. The fastball, both breaking balls weren’t sharp.
“That changeup, there were a couple good ones but it just wasn’t consistent. You could just see him trying to find it the entire outing.”
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