Bill Chastain on Astros.com put it this way, ” Backe gets his work in against Rays” Link
That’s what he should have been doing, but that’s not what happened.
McTaggart reported
Brandon Backe threw 45 pitches, most of them fastballs, in his second spring outing (and first start) for the Astros on Tuesday. He hadn’t thrown many breaking pitches before getting into trouble in the third, when he allowed four of Tampa Bay’s 10 runs in the inning.
“The first two pitches of the (third) inning, they’re swinging, so they know I’m throwing fastballs,” Backe said. “I tried to make an adjustment to throw breaking balls to get ahead, and obviously I haven’t been throwing any in the bullpen, and last game I didn’t throw any. I got myself deep in bad counts.”
Link
So, he sees that the hitters know what he’s going to throw, and the adrenalin kicks in. He trys the breaking stuff which he admits isn’t ready. The results are very predictable.
It doesn’t help that there are these types of comments being made,
With a month of ST still to go, McTaggart blogs “With Russ Ortiz pitching so well Monday, this outing certainly doesn’t help Backe’s chances of making this club.” Link
McTaggart might not be the only one thinking that way. The Astros have a number of pitchers that as Ed Wade says are at “high noon” in their progress, Cooper puts it more like “one o’clock”. But trying to do too much too soon in Spring Training isn’t smart.