Blue Jays rookie Daniel Norris battling 'dead arm'; MRI comes back clean

Toronto Blue Jays left-hander Daniel Norris offered an explanation Sunday for his less-than-stellar outing against the Atlanta Braves: he has a dead arm. 

While uninjured, Norris is laboring, unable to command the ball to the best of his abilities, and his pitches are lacking the finish and velocity that made the 21-year-old one of the most promising pitching prospects in baseball. An MRI, however, revealed no structural problems or circulation issues in his left arm, Sportsnet's Mike Wilner reported Tuesday.

On Sunday, though, Toronto's top-ranked prospect by Baseball America turned in the shortest start of his young career, going 2 2/3 innings, while allowing five runs on six hits with two walks and one strikeout. He was constantly working from behind, throwing first-pitch strikes to only five of the 15 batters he faced. Norris missed his spots badly - both above and below the zone - and threw just 50 percent of his pitches for strikes. 

(Courtesy: Brooks Baseball)

"I'm going through a little bit of a dead-arm phase," Norris told reporters. "It's something where you feel 100 percent fine but (the ball) doesn't come out like it usually does.

"Even if I throw and it says 93 or 94 (miles an hour) it doesn't have the same life on it and I can't really command it like I'm used to. It's mentally exhausting going out there trying to do something to give you a little bit of momentum. You can't do anything to fix it, you just get through it."

Norris has a 6.08 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 1.43 strikeout-to-walk rate through three starts. 

He'll look to get back on track Saturday versus the Tampa Bay Rays, whom he threw five innings against in a loss in his second start of the season.