Balazovic not letting tough start to key spring slow him down

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- If it’s any consolation to Jordan Balazovic, the 6,000 calories’ worth of smoothies that he has to drink daily to maintain his weight taste a lot better than he expected -- and that’s a small relief as he begins a critical spring that otherwise couldn’t have started out much worse.

The way the 24-year-old tells it, he was in downtown Fort Myers on the night of Feb. 11, and he was walking when he was struck twice by a stranger. He claims not to have provoked the person or said anything to him, but all the same, Balazovic ended up spending his final night off before Spring Training in the hospital, getting his jaw wired shut.

Balazovic can’t afford to let it slow down arguably the most important season of his professional career. And fortunately for the No. 16 prospect in the organization per MLB Pipeline, Balazovic says he’s set to start throwing bullpen sessions later in the week and hopes the incident won’t “hold [him] back too much” for the regular season.

“This is probably the biggest season for me,” Balazovic said. “It's not off to a good start with this, but thankful I'm able to work out and do everything I can to prepare myself. I feel a lot better than last year coming into the season.”

Balazovic said he was up to 95 mph in his bullpen sessions early this spring before he got hit, which he says is where he was last September, when he salvaged a bit of what had otherwise been a near-total loss of a season.

Last year, he arrived in camp with a left knee injury that the Twins didn't know about due to the lockout. That kept him away from affiliated game action until May 1, and he feels that he might have rushed back, which he now admits “wasn’t the smartest thing.”

President of baseball operations Derek Falvey had said that the Twins weren’t sure how much the knee impacted Balazovic’s pitching as he posted an 8.82 ERA in five May starts for Triple-A St. Paul, a 10.00 ERA in June and a 13.50 ERA in July. The sum total of the damage was a 7.68 ERA in 23 appearances (21 starts), with 77 strikeouts and 37 walks in 72 2/3 innings.

“Obviously, he pitched for us in the Minor Leagues, and he didn’t have the performance that he would have hoped or we would have hoped,” Falvey said. “It probably had some impact for sure, because he was behind.”

But if you ask Balazovic, the entire season was a “puzzle” that he had to piece together, stemming from the injury. He didn’t know where his arm was when he landed due to the shakiness in his landing knee. He tried to compensate as he got knocked around start after start, and he didn’t have great feel because he wasn’t used to his front side feeling that way.

"There were definitely flashes,” Balazovic said. “There would be an inning where it'd be really good, and then there'd be innings where it'd be really bad. … Once I started to feel better and get back into more of a pitching routine, I felt a lot more consistent.”

Balazovic put things together in September, when he pitched to a 3.43 ERA across his final five starts, with 30 strikeouts to 10 walks in 21 innings, flashing the potential that had him once ranked as high as the No. 4 prospect in the organization. But by then, it was too late to sustain the success.

“We saw some signs at the end of last year from a pitching standpoint where things were going a little bit better for him,” Falvey said. “It just delays that start again.”

In that time, Balazovic was jumped in the system by young starters like Bailey Ober, Louie Varland, Josh Winder, Simeon Woods Richardson and Ronny Henriquez, who are all slated to play meaningful roles in the Twins’ 2023 push. Falvey was candid about the fact that Balazovic hadn’t pitched well enough to be a part of that group.

Balazovic is entering this spring -- or rather, entered this spring -- on a much better physical note. He will now have to prove that his pitching and his focus are in the right places to re-enter the picture for the Twins.

“I know my stuff is good, and the biggest thing was being healthy,” Balazovic said. “Just going to keep my head down and work and see what happens.”