Craig Kimbrel was credited with a hold for pitching a scoreless inning of work Wednesday evening, his first such outing of the spring. It was an encouraging sign where previously there’d been none as the 32-year-old righty’s fastball velocity has been lower than expected and he’s given up all kinds of loud contact. Even given the nature of spring training ball, things got to the point that David Ross even expressed public concern.
Still, the manager has stuck by his closer with confidence (or hubris) evocative of Lovie Smith reinforcing to the world that “Rex [Grossman] is our quarterback.