LAKELAND, Fla. -- Results of spring games don't matter but individual results do.
Not necessarily the outcomes, but how a pitcher looked, how the batters reacted to him, how the hitter's swing looked, those kinds of things.
The Tigers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-4. The Jays' lineup contained three former Tigers.
Anibal Sanchez appeared in his second spring start and continued to build on his previous outing, two scoreless innings against the Baltimore Orioles.
This time, Sanchez wasn't quite as perfect, giving up two runs on four hits while walking one and striking out two. He threw 55 pitches, 40 for strikes.
"Today the only that I feel, I was a little bit up," Sanchez said. "That's my only concern today. But I have a lot of time for get ready for the season. Keep working for build my arm and my mechanics and the stuff that I need to be ready for the season."
Sanchez got to face some of Toronto's best hitters, including Jose Bautista, who knocked Sanchez out with his first home run of the season.
"I threw slider, I miss in the middle," Sanchez said. "He's a pretty good hitter. I try go inside just to see if he gets there quickly and he did. (laughs) He's too quick."
Joe Nathan had a 1-2-3 inning in the fifth, facing Bautista first.
Nathan got Bautista to fly out.
"He's one of those guys that does give me fits so it's nice to get a challenge and have a guy out there that tends to see the ball pretty good against myself," Nathan said. "I thought I had him earlier in that at-bat, the 2-2 pitch looked pretty good. But to be able to come back and throw a pretty decent one 3-2 as well and get him out on his front foot, that was nice to see."
Ian Krol allowed one hit and got a strikeout in the sixth inning. The hit was a ground-rule double by former Tigers prospect Devon Travis.
"I threw one curveball today for a strike, (Daric) Barton hit it foul, but other than that, my cutter was really well, I was throwing hard, throwing strikes," Krol said. "Devon Travis put a good swing on the ball. It was a down-and-in pitch Really good swing. But other than that, I felt really good."
Anthony Gose made things exciting in the field.
In the third inning, Gose hit a ball off the pitcher's glove and it ended up in center field, allowing the speedy Gose to take second and Rajai Davis to score.
With Yoenis Cespedes up and no out, Gose then took off for third when the catcher was throwing the ball back to the pitcher, Preston Guilmet.
Guilmet threw wildly to third, the ball got away and Gose scored.
Gose said after the game that he had a brain fart and shouldn't have gone in that situation.
"Realistically, you got the heart of our order coming up and no outs, probably not the ideal time," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "But if you got the bottom of the order up and one out, I'm a little more willing to take a chance."
It all worked out in Gose's favor and it's still spring, so no harm done.
***If multimedia does not appear right away, please click refresh***
COMPLETE TIGERS SPRING TRAINING 2015 COVERAGE
