Notes: Luzardo turns heads; Brown hits slam

LAS VEGAS -- The A’s excitement about getting a full season out of Jesús Luzardo in their starting rotation only seems to grow with each Cactus League start.

Luzardo came out firing to begin Sunday’s 8-5 victory over the Indians at Las Vegas Ballpark with a 98 mph fastball to Francisco Lindor, immediately showcasing just one of the many tools that make him Oakland’s No. 1 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, and one of the top prospects in the game.

"This guy is really electric when he’s got everything working,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Very few guys have all plus-pitches. If one is not working on that particular day, he has others to draw from.”

There are five pitches at Luzardo’s disposal -- fastball, curveball, changeup, sinker and slider -- and all five were working for him Sunday. An infield single by Roberto Pérez in the first was the only thing keeping Luzardo from perfection, as the left-hander retired nine of 10 batters faced through three scoreless innings with three strikeouts. All three strikeouts were swinging and came on the changeup, one of his pitches he considers a put-away pitch, along with the fastball and slider.

“I was really focused on getting my offspeeds ahead in the count. I was pretty happy about how I did that,” said Luzardo, who threw 28 of his 42 pitches for strikes. “I was able to get a couple of first-pitch breaking balls and changeups in there, so that was good.”

After an impressive 2019 cameo working out of the A’s bullpen over the final month of the regular season, Luzardo is looking forward to the transition back to starting. He’s always considered himself a pitcher who gets stronger as the innings go by in an outing, and that was certainly the case Sunday as the strikeouts came against three of the final four batters he faced.

“After the first, I kind of settled in and started feeling all my pitches better,” Luzardo said. “Second and third were definitely better innings for me.”

Perhaps due to a bit of an adrenaline boost by facing a childhood idol in Lindor, Luzardo started the star shortstop off with four consecutive 98 mph fastballs and sat around that velocity with the pitch for the first inning. The next two frames saw the fastball around 95-96 mph, for the most part. But more important than the velocity for Luzardo is making sure the command is on point, and he felt he did a better job of locating it Sunday than he did in his two scoreless innings against the Padres last time out.

“He was good from the start,” Melvin said. “His stuff is so sharp. His breaking ball is as good as we’ve seen it. His changeup was on. His fastball was moving and he had good command of it.”

Yet to allow a run in two spring starts, Luzardo’s next outing is likely to come Saturday against the Mariners in Peoria, Ariz.

Good first impression

Burch Smith, the reliever acquired from the Giants last month, has opened some eyes in his first two spring outings.

Following up a scoreless inning earlier in the week, Smith was so efficient Sunday that he picked up a second inning. Taking over for Luzardo to begin the bottom of the fourth, Smith retired all six batters he faced, three via strikeout.

“He’s impressed us,” Melvin said. “He’s showing a good changeup, a good curveball and a good fastball that has a pretty good ride to it.”

Smith is in contention for what could be one or two open slots in the A’s bullpen.

Meanwhile, in Arizona

It was a split-squad sweep for the A’s as the group of players who stayed in Arizona picked up a 10-6 win over the Royals. Seth Brown, who has been swinging a hot bat early in spring, hit a grand slam as part of a 2-for-3 day.

Up next

Right-hander Frankie Montas will make his second Cactus League start Monday in a 6:05 p.m. PT tilt with the Cubs at Hohokam Stadium. Montas will look increase his workload after working a scoreless inning against the D-backs. Alec Mills is scheduled to start for Chicago. Fans can watch the Las Vegas game live on MLB.TV or MLB Network or listen on Gameday Audio.