Heaney Ready for First Texas Rangers Season Despite Uneven Spring
This wasn’t the way Andrew Heaney wanted to end his first MLB Spring Training with the Texas Rangers, but there’s no sense crying now over spilled runs.
The regular season is just about upon us, and Heaney is scheduled to take the ball in fifth game of the season against the Baltimore Orioles. His last start in Arizona – five runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings in a 5-3 loss Friday to the Chicago Cubs – is now in the rearview mirror.
So is Cactus League play. Heaney’s 6.75 ERA during the spring is just a footnote with the real games set to start Thursday.
“It’s really tough to say that after, obviously, an outing, like I had today,” Heaney said Friday, according to MLB.com. “You know, there’s definitely a lot of things that I can do better. Some of them are very simple things that I think I do pretty well 99 percent of the time. I just didn’t do it.
“Again, it’s kind of a tough thing to say obviously, like after having not had a great outing today. But again, you have them and you just gotta grind through them.”
Heaney tried to make his final spring start about the basics – getting strike one, getting the ball over the plate and fielding his position. The results were, well, less than ideal.
“It was just not a good day,” he said. “There’s really nothing really great to say. I mean, not my best stuff, not my best day, not my best results. But you know, unfortunately, it happens sometimes. Just gotta hang with it.”
Heaney did work extensively this spring on adding a changeup to a repertoire that includes an elite fastball and slider. He hardly used the change with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season.
That changed this spring.
“That was, in some ways, by design,” he said. “You gotta throw it, you got to see every hitter and in every count, in every situation. It’s just seeing what I can and can’t get away with and how fine I need to be with it.”
The Rangers have settled on their five-man rotation to start the season. Jacob deGrom takes the ball Opening Day against the Philadelphia Phillies. Nathan Eovaldi and Martín Pérez close out the series against the defending National League champs. Jon Gray is scheduled to start the Orioles series followed by Heaney.
“I feel great about the rotation, I really do,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “I like our five guys. They’re going to be exciting to watch, they really are.”
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