PHOENIX -- Madison Bumgarner took the mound at Chase Field wearing a D-backs uniform for the first time Saturday, but instead of it being the scheduled opener on March 26, it was for a live batting-practice session.
“There’s a whole different dynamic to it today,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “I was wondering what he was thinking. I was looking at him, wondering if he was comfortable, if he remembers what it was like all the times he got on the mound here throwing against the D-backs. I spent a few pitches watching him and wondering about the familiarity aspect of it. Hopefully, this starts to feel like home.”
Bumgarner threw 35 to 40 pitches and, not unexpectedly for his first session of Summer Camp, was not overly sharp.
“I felt pretty good given the circumstances,” Bumgarner said. “I was pretty happy with the takeaways. Obviously it wasn’t perfect and not expected to be, but for where we’re at right now, I was pretty happy with it.”
Keeping up his strength
Bumgarner returned to his North Carolina home after baseball shut down in March and threw like he normally does during an offseason, but with a little more intensity.
“I just tried to kind of maintain the arm strength that I had,” he said. “I didn’t do any games or simulated games or anything like that. Just tried to keep my arm in shape and ready to go.”
Bumgarner will throw again in a couple of days, doing his best, he said, to try to ramp up so that he’s just about hitting his stride when Opening Day rolls around in about three weeks.
“Now is going to be the telling sign for a lot of guys because this is when you have to start getting ready fast and there’s a lot of pressure on guys to do that,” Bumgarner said. “So [these] next three weeks will be the time that’s the most different and affect guys the most. We’ll have to figure out ways to navigate that and make sure we’re all ready when the season starts.”
Lovullo addresses team
With all but a couple of players -- David Peralta and Kole Calhoun -- having reported for Summer Camp, Lovullo took some time Saturday to hold a team meeting.
“I was able to get in front of them and outline a few of my expectations,” Lovullo said. “Some of the things that are important to me, simple reminders of what our concepts are, what our beliefs are and what we’re trying to get to.”
Lovullo took some good-natured ribbing from the team’s Twitter account late last week when it posted a clip of Lovullo’s first full squad meeting in February when he told his team, “We will play 162 games, that’s a given” before laying out his hopes for more in the postseason.
The clip was accompanied with the words, “About that, Torey ...”
Lovullo will go to the team’s satellite camp at Salt River Fields on Sunday to address the players that are working out there.
Another positive test
Lovullo said that a member of the 60-man roster, but not one on the 40-man roster tested positive for COVID-19.
The D-backs previously had three 40-man-roster players test positive.
Taking away his lumber
Few big league pitchers have been as vocal about their love of hitting as Bumgarner, and he was asked Saturday what he thought about the designated hitter being adopted in the National League for the first time this year.
“Obviously my thoughts don’t really matter on that deal,” he said with a chuckle. “I do what I’m told. I’ll sit there and pitch and that’s it for now. I think that’s obviously where everybody wants the game to go, so it is what it is.”
MVP of the day
Infielder Ildemaro Vargas hit three home runs during live batting practice.
“I don’t want to say that one is jumping out any more than the others, but I will say I watched Ildemaro Vargas go deep three times today off of live pitching,” Lovullo said. “That was very impressive.”