Daniel Bard was pleased with his outing Thursday afternoon. (AP)

FORT MYERS, Fla. – So, what to make of Daniel Bard’s first appearance of the spring – a one-inning outing against Northeastern at JetBlue Park Thursday afternoon, in which he struck out the side.

Catcher David Ross: “Bardo struggled early on and then found it. He actually made adjustment midway through the inning and looked sharp. But early on it was just trying to get his body under control. Even though we’re going up against college kids, there’s still some adrenaline. I had some nerves and adrenaline today.

“I caught him in two bullpens. I think he’s working on some things mechanically. What’s promising is that when he got out of whack with his fastball he flipped that breaking ball out there, which is a good sign to me as a catcher. He has a very good slider, and a very good changeup.”

Manager John Farrell: “He went from a guy who was ultra-aggressive and ultra-confident to one who, with the change in role came a change in mindset. We’re getting back to that shorter stint and aggressive mentality. That’s something he set out to establish or regain and prove. Today was the first step in that process.

“In conversation and in side work, in BP, yeah, I don’t think it’s going to happen over night. The one thing we want to do is establish the aggressiveness first, and if we have to make some adjustments to gain more consistent command, that might be the case. The first step is more from the mentality side of things.

“At times, he leveraged it downhill, his delivery was on time. There were other times you could see him come off the pitch where he’d run it up and in to a right-hander. That’s not totally unexpected.”

Bard: “I’m satisfied. Not perfect obviously, but it’s a huge step in the right direction. It’s always good to get out of the gate with some good results. The focus today was just being in the zone as much as possible. I threw two pitches for strikes. Just go from there. …

“It was exciting. The live BP, I don’t think I got any swings. I was happy with how I threw the ball but they were just tracking pitches. This was the first real adrenaline rush. It’s a lot of fun.”

The pitcher would finish his 18-pitch outing throwing 13 strikes, while only allowing a leadoff single to the Huskies’ Connor Lyons.

As mentioned by Ross, the reliever struggled with fastball command early on before straightening himself out, thanks in part to the use of an effective slider. Read the rest of this entry »

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Casey Kelly just sailed through an inning of work in the top of the first inning against Northeastern. He retired the Huskies in order. After falling behind leadoff man Tucker Roeder, 2-0, he then came back with three straight strikes to punch him out swinging. He then got Tony DiCesare on a first-pitch groundout to second, then finished the inning by punching out Northeastern’s Frank Compagnone on four pitches, the last one a swing-and-miss fastball.

Kelly’s line was a perfect inning with two strikeouts, in which he threw 10 pitches (seven strikes).