ashbury

My son and I arrived around 10:30 without a clue that the minor league games had been moved up. I saw only Hughes's last inning, where two consecutive batters walked away shaking their heads. I haven't downloaded my photos yet, but I might have caught a good one of the first of these, ducking out of the way of strike three.

Fryer isn't on the 40-man so waiving isn't part of the process. Thompson is, and simply moving him off with no compensation isn't the end of the world if it's to keep someone they like better on the 25-man, such as Hamburger. If something can be obtained in trade, so much the better.

Good observation about the crowd thinning out as the game pictures progressed. Some people probably made the assumption that a tie in the ninth would end the game. Lots of families with young children, in our area of the park, had already left as well; but we were in the cheap seats so that might not be representative of those in the picture. I dunno, traffic getting out of jetBlue tends to be horrendous considering the park holds only, what, 10K fans, so maybe it's a tradition there like in LA to arrive late and leave early to beat the traffic. Some older folks just want a head start in any case.

Suppose some other team offered their version of Fryer to you. Which Twins prospect would you dangle to obtain him? Or Milone, or Pelfrey, or ...

I doubt that anyone who takes a statistical view on a topic is downplaying the importance of attitude. It's just that if the player's attitude is instrumental, it should show up in the stats. If a guy isn't hitting any singles, or any doubles, or any triples, or any homers, or drawing any walks, yet is scoring and driving in a ton of runs, due solely to possessing a winner's attitude, he'll be the first. And if the attitude is instead showing up as singles, doubles, etc. that are leading to the runs, presumably his attitude is consistent from year to year and will continue to show up in the stats. If the stats are poor, and a change in attitude is what's needed to fix that, rather than a better batting stance or whatever, I'm all for it. Instead, when the stats improve, what often gets said is that some unseen thing like attitude was the cause. But to me it sounds like second-guessing, because it rarely works consistently in the other direction - how many times have we seen a Spring article about someone's new-found attitude, but the results at the end of the year still wind up being poor.

Yep, I robbed the cradle with that'un. A good 14 months younger. But in fairness, being married to me would be a fountain of youth for any woman.

There's that, but also Poker is so much more structured than most business situations.

Those are the only guys he'll face if he's sent to AAA, like some folks are saying is what's needed to resuscitate his career. I don't see a path that allows him to ever reach the majors again by such logic.

Up at the top of the TD page is "Organization Chart", and if you click on it you'll find The Player Formerly Known As Tommy Milone had options used in 13 and 14, so he has one remaining.

I just remembered, I think it's not allowed to trade a free agent signing before Opening Day. Stauffer would have to be cut, and that's just not going to happen.

Special jetBlue Edition! We took a break from Hammond Stadium for a day, and visited the Red Sox spring facilities for a game. Before we went inside, we wandered in their minor league area. I was initially annoyed, because we went in what I thought to be an obvious direction but were stopped by one of the senile highly experienced hard of hearing stadium personnel, and directed toward the other side of the complex. At first I was thinking it looked like a wild goose chase (or snipe hunt) and there was to be no access to minor leaguers at all. But it turned out to be just a long walk, and it's about as free (once you pay parking of course) and open as at the Twins facilities. Here is a typical view, with fields on either side. We walked further, essentially circling around almost to where we were denied entrance. This ended at a No Man's Land separating the major league practice field from the clubhouses. Well, "some" Men and their families were apparently allowed access, probably wealthy fans who had paid some kind of premium to rub elbows with luminaries like Brock Holt. Oh well, next lifetime. We contented ourselves watching pitchers take batting practice, specifically working on their bunting, specifically working on overcoming their instinct to flinch (as I interpreted some of their reactions to facing a pitching machine and having to expose fingers and thumbs). Turns out the BoSox open their season in a National League park, so it figures. Here are manager John Farrell and coach Torey Lovullo overseeing matters. Here we happened to meet up with John Bonnes, and TD member eLee612. We chatted a bit, as drills concluded, then headed toward the main ballpark entrance. When inside, you have your starting lineups. Someone in the Game Thread asked whether the park has a Green Monster. Here is their equivalent of it, but it has seating (within, and on top) for fans. We were seated in Reserved Lawn seating. Here is yours truly and Mrs Ashburyjohn in a typical tourist pose that dozens of other tourists replicated on their respective cameras. So. The game. John Bonnes wrote up a good summary here so there is little value in my repeating much the same. Escobar homered in the second, and in the fourth also drove in Plouffe on a sac fly after Arcia had driven in Hunter. Fryer drove in Arcia in the seventh with a single after the latter had tripled to right. I can't bring photos that illustrate any of this. Instead, I will offer you an unfair and cherry-picked reason why Shane Robinson would not be on the team if I had any say: I jotted down typical pitch speeds from the radar gun display. Here is Tommy Milone throwing either an 87 MPH changeup or his 81 MPH fastball - I can't tell the difference, and I'm not sure the batters really can either. Here is Tim Stauffer throwing something from his similar 88 MPH (or slower) arsenal: On the Twins, a really good fastball is the true change of pace. Here is Mark Hamburger throwing what might be his 85 MPH slider (guessing from his fingers) - big as a beachball don't you think? - to the Red Sox' on-deck hitter. No, not really that far off the plate, but Mark was pretty wild at times, but effective, with his mostly 95 MPH fastball. And finally, here is young prospect Jake Reed throwing a 95 MPH fastball to Allen Craig, the batter he did retire (on a popup). I put my camera away in time to not capture the pitch resulting in second batter Rusney Castillo's home run off the wall in left that ended the game in the 10th inning, 5-4.

If Tommy Milone isn't Tommy Milone, we'll need to find out who is. Probably someone named Tommy Milone, or else someone by the same name.