SARASOTA, Fla. -- For veterans and young pitchers alike, the early spring games are for working on things, not for results.
But most of the Tigers pitchers got very good results against the Orioles Wednesday in Sarasota.
Starter Anibal Sanchez allowed one hit and struck out one in two innings of work.
"I think it was pretty clear that he was a veteran guy just getting his work in, working on his location, velocity picked up in the 90s, 90ish in his second inning," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "But that's what you see from a veteran pitcher first outing in spring training."
Sanchez seemed pleased with his first effort, especially against some of the Orioles' expected starters.
"I feel good," Sanchez said. "Working a little on my fastball today, working to put the pitch for a strike. The more things that I'm working on during the offseason all my career is my location on every pitch. So today worked really good for the first day."
It also worked well for Drew VerHagen, who has fully recovered from a low back strain that sidelined him for the rest of the season after he made his major league debut.
VerHagen threw two scoreless innings without allowing a hit, striking out three.
"I felt really good. I felt healthy, stuff felt great," VerHagen said. "It's the first outing, luckily I had all my pitches working, getting them over for strikes. That was the big thing. I wasn't trying to be too fine, just throw strikes and get outs, keep it simple."
VerHagen said he was working on his change-up with the new grip he started using last season.
"I definitely focused on throwing those because I faced a lot of lefties and that's a good pitch for me against lefties," VerHagen said. "It comes in looking like a fastball and instead of just fading, it drops off a little bit more."
Hitting stars included Anthony Gose, 2-for-3 with a run scored; Dixon Machado, also 2-for-3 with a run scored; Steven Moya with an RBI single, looking no worse for wear after back spasms sidelined him Tuesday; and Nick Castellanos, getting a two-run birthday home run to left field that was helped a bit by Alejandro De Aza.
"I would've told you, even regardless of how he came to spring training, I would've said that I think that over the course of the next few years you'll probably see more power out of Nick," Ausmus said. "Part of the maturation process."
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COMPLETE TIGERS SPRING TRAINING 2015 COVERAGE
