Cecil roughed up in shortest outing of career

The Blue Jays scouting report for rookie Brett Cecil Thursday called for the 22 year old to get ahead in the count, and to keep his pitches down. He didn't accomplish either of these tasks, leading to his shortest outing of his big league career.

His pitching line was not pretty, allowing 5 runs, 9 hits, 3 walks in 3 innings. Cecil ran into trouble early when he consistently kept his pitches up in the strike zone. He fell behind early in the count, particularly because his sharp curveball was flat, and the Reds teed off on him.

In Cecil's five starts, he's had 3 outstanding outings, and 2 that he would like to forget. He's still very young, but there have been clear signs of exceptional talent. There will be more growing pains this season, but the most important thing is that he learns from the bad games. He's already shown great resiliency bouncing back from the 5 home run debacle against Boston. Cecil will recover again.