SARASOTA – Two thoughts struck Orioles reliever Yennier Cano at the same time that a ball crashed into his right shin.

Comebackers at 111.1 mph have a tendency to hurt. And he couldn’t believe that a long-time friend was responsible for the bruise that he’d take back to Sarasota.

Cano and the Phillies outfielder Adolis García grew up in Ciego de Avila, a year apart in age, and were teammates in the Cuban National Series. They go way back.

Garcia was batting in the sixth inning Friday afternoon in Clearwater when he offered at a sinker and lined it up the middle. Cano was unable to get out of the way, slipped as he tried to pick up the ball, and laughed at the absurdity of the moment.

Catcher Samuel Basallo threw out García, and manager Craig Albernaz and Triple-A athletic trainer Alan Rail rushed out of the dugout. Cano stayed in the game after a couple of warmup tosses.

“I expected to go out there and go like, ‘Come on, Cano, let’s get off the field,’ but he just brushed it off like nothing happened,” Albernaz said afterward. “He has a little bit of a contusion. He looked good considering 111 off the shin.”

Cano stood at his locker yesterday and explained how he learned to ignore the pain.

Like anything else, it takes practice.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he said via interpreter Brandon Quinones. “In Cuba, we were used to play soccer with coconuts, so getting hit yesterday was nothing compared to that.”

Substituting a hard-shelled drupe fruit for a synthetic leather ball has prepared Cano for moments when he can’t get his glove on a comebacker.

“Honestly, I mean, it hurt once it hit my leg, the impact, but I didn’t know how fast it came off the bat,” he said.

“The trainer came out and checked on me and was like, ‘How are you?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, you know, I’m good.’ And then the trainer said, ‘Uh, it came off the bat at 111. You know, that can be pretty painful, since you could even break a bone.’ And I was like, ‘Oh wow. But no, I’m good.’”

Cano allowed his second earned run of the spring in six innings, with one walk and seven strikeouts, and should be in Baltimore for Opening Day.

The 2023 All-Star fell on hard professional times last summer, getting sent down for a brief spell and finishing with a 5.12 ERA and 1.483 WHIP in 65 games. He needed a strong camp to eliminate the possibility that he’d be optioned again, and he reported in better shape and with a positive mindset.

“I’m feeling really good about it,” Cano said. “I’m feeling really good about some of the new pitches I’m trying to incorporate and finding different ways to utilize my pitches. So using the splitter a lot more, really feeling good about my slider and where it’s at, trying to use that a lot more. Obviously, having those pitches work off my sinker and working on utilizing the four-seam fastball up in the zone a lot more.

“I think teams would game plan a lot for my sinker, and having those weapons to counteract that, it’s gonna be a big difference for me this year.”

Cano ditched a circle changeup that opponents hit .417 against last season, compared to .230 in 2024.

“We came to the conclusion that my sinker and the changeup, there wasn’t much of a difference between those two pitches,” he said. “The changeup was at 91, sinker 95, but they moved the same way. So we wanted to find a different way to have a pitch that has more depth, and that’s where the splitter came in. Swapping that in for the changeup.”

Like using coconuts to develop a higher threshold for pain, Cano came up with the adjusted pitch mix in a way he didn’t intend – from playing catch last year with reliever Yaramil Hiraldo, whose locker is next to him in the spring training clubhouse.

“I was warming up with Hiraldo one day and he throws a splitter,” Cano said. “I was like, ‘You know what, let me just try it out and see how it goes.’ And when I threw it, he was like, ‘Man, that looks really good.’ From there on I was like, it looks good, it feels good, so why not use it?”

Pitching coach Drew French chimed in after watching Cano, and his opinion really counts.

“He was like, ‘Wow, that looked decent, and you were able to make it work really quick. It looks effective. So why not keep working on it and using it?’” Cano recalled. “I was like, ‘You know what? Yeah, let me do it. I’m not having a great year anyway. Let me mess around and see how it looks.’”

Albernaz has been impressed with Cano since early in camp, beginning with bullpen sessions and live batting practice. The right-hander’s importance to the club has increased with Andrew Kittredge headed to the injured list with right shoulder inflammation.

“He’s gross. He’s still gross. Like, his stuff is still gross,” Albernaz said.

“What I didn’t realize is how athletic that dude is. He is such a great athlete. And it’s tough to tell when you’re a reliever coming in, the athleticism being across the way, but to see it every day like in his catch play, PFPs, we were doing bunt defenses. And makes sense where our pitching coaches are making suggestions and he can do it fairly quickly because he has that athleticism.

“Right now to me, he just looks great. Confidence, moving down the slope well. And the shapes are right where they need to be. He’s continually working hard, and all my conversations with him, he knows he’s not a finished product, he knows that there’s always little dials to turn to get better.

“The dude’s a freak. He’s a freak on the mound and it’s fun that I’m wearing the same uniform as him, not watching him carve up guys on my team watching across the way.”