Pitching against the Phillies, spring training 2017.

One of baseball’s quirks is that players have to take everything  — EVERYTHING! — one pitch at a time. Doesn’t matter if you’re hitting, fielding, catching, running the bases, or pitching. That quirk gets its completion in the fact that players are judged over the long haul. Statistics show the results of one pitch at a time over the course of six or seven months. Or even one pitch at a time for years and years and years.

Yesterday, Jesse Biddle came back after 555 days of dealing with a torn elbow ligament — resting, surgery, rehab and extremely patient ramping up — to finally get some time on the mound with real hitters, an ump behind the plate, and a crowd in the stands. Yup, it was simply a spring training game. It was also just one inning. Nineteen pitches to be exact — only nine strikes, but two strike outs and a groundout, all against his old team the Philadelphia Phillies.

One spring training inning does not a comeback make. But he took the whole scene in stride, including media interviews before the game, knowing that it was all about one pitch at a time. And that’s how he operated out on the field, walking his good friend Tommy Joseph to start the inning, then striking out prospect Dylan Cozens and another good friend, Aaron Altherr, before ending the inning by getting the Phillies top prospect, J.P. Crawford to top a high chopper to third base for the third out.

Jesse’s off-speed and breaking balls weren’t sharp enough in that small window of time, but he knew his fastball would be fine (even as he tried to settle down against Joseph). And it was. His fastballs all clocked in at 93 and 94 mph and it was clear that anything close to the strike zone was going to be hard to make real contact with.

No telling how things will shake out in 2017. To paraphrase Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…:”

“There are still miles to throw before he sleeps…”