The World Baseball Classic was unkind to Ollie, who in two starts went 6 2/3 total innings letting up 7ER on 13 hits, 5 of those being home runs. It's time for Dan Warthen to start working his magic when Ollie gets to St. Lucie around Wednesday.Under the tutelage of pitching coach Dan Warthen, Ollie made serious strides last year. In 20 starts working with Warthen, Oliver went 5 - 3 with an ERA of 3.77. He tossed 121.2 innings, striking out 117 while keeping his walks down with only 57 (he had 48 in his prior 14 starts). These numbers, along with the organization's belief in his raw talent, landed Oliver a 3 year $36 million contract this off season.
After watching Oliver pitch during the Classic, I think it's good he gets back to work with Warthen. His fastball looked okay but was consistently up, and he couldn't throw his slider for strikes. I understand it's spring training to an extent but he just looked average out there. Not bad or inconsistent, but not himself either. He did however look very sharp in his first spring start before shipping off to the Mexican team, going 2 shutout innings against the Marlins and striking out 3. Things seemingly click with him and Warthen. I'm not by any means ready to hit the panic button strictly based off of WBC numbers, I am however happy to have him back in camp.
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