PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- When Touki Toussaint hears others speak glowingly about his confidence and poise, he feels fortunate to be able to laugh about the scary experience he endured just two years ago, when he battled the yips.

"It was crazy," Braves Minor League catcher Jonathan Morales said. "Balls were bouncing and going everywhere. But in games, he was throwing strikes. So, I was like, 'Are you playing with me?'"

It was anything but a joke for Toussaint, whose will has been routinely tested since the D-backs selected him with the 16th overall pick in the 2014 Draft and then dealt him to the Braves the following summer for financial relief. He repeated at the Class A level, and he was not invited to big league camp last Spring Training.

"I was like, 'Oh man, they don’t believe in me,'" Toussaint said. "You start questioning yourself. I just told myself I had to believe in myself before anybody else could believe in me. So I went and did that."

Toussaint certainly didn't appear to be questioning his potential as he completed two innings in the Braves' 4-3 loss to the Mets in their Grapefruit League opener on Saturday afternoon. The 22-year-old appeared every bit as confident as he was last summer, when he impressed during each of his first five Major League starts and earned a spot on Atlanta's postseason roster.

With Mike Soroka's right shoulder ailing again, Toussaint and Max Fried are the top candidates to begin this season as Atlanta's fifth starter.

"I'd say I'm very confident," Toussaint said. "I know what I have. I've seen it. I've watched it and I'm ready to get after it."

Toussaint opened Saturday's outing by recording 11 strikes in a perfect 14-pitch first inning. He used the curveball to strike out Jeff McNeil and opened the second inning by getting Michael Conforto to swing through a two-strike fastball. Toussaint's attempt to escape the two-inning outing unscathed evaporated when Pete Alonso smacked a first-pitch fastball over the left-center-field fence.

Toussaint (50th) and Alonso (51st) rank side-by-side on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects list.

"That's probably the hardest [hit] ball I've given up," Toussaint said. "I've seen him hit some balls, but that one was impressive."

As Toussaint posted a 3.33 ERA over five regular-season starts and then produced a pair of scoreless relief appearances in last season’s National League Division Series, he exceeded all expectations set when he began the year with Double-A Mississippi. He was far from a polished product at this time last year, but he still seemed eons from where he was the previous March, when he battled the yips.

"I'm happy I took the steps forward on the mental side and the physical side," Toussaint said. "From not being able to play catch like Morales said, to now kind of knowing where I'm going to throw the ball or knowing where I want to throw the ball. It's kind of a relief."

Toussaint credits much of his progress to the conversations he began sharing with Blue Jays veteran pitcher Aaron Sanchez during the 2017 season.

"He was like, 'You have all the stuff. Now, you just need to learn how to pitch,'" Toussaint said. "'You need to learn how to throw 88. Go out every outing for your first five outings and throw 88 mph fastballs.' People say hitters get themselves out. You see in [batting practice] hitters popping stuff up. But it's like, do you really believe that? I went out there, had success and I was like, 'I can do this.'"