ashbury

Vacation time in Ft Myers is coming to a close. We had a very fun day at the Twins spring complex today. We arrived at 10:30 unaware the minor league games had been moved up several hours, presumably in response to the forecast of rain. I started watching the Cedar Rapids game, and then a little bird told me, "you're missing Phil Hughes". I switched over to the Miracle game, in the fifth inning. Performing as the World's Most Expensive Bat Boy in this game was Kohl Stewart. (Lurking on the right has to be Aaron Slegers, who served later in the game as World's Tallest Bat Boy.) Hughes's breaking pitch was working beautifully here in the fifth inning, as an overmatched Rays youngster barely ducks out of the way of strike three: Twins manager Paul Molitor was on hand to watch his ace, as well as catcher Suzuki. (Not pictured, bench coach Joe Vavra was nearby as well.) After Hughes's stint, Ryan Eades came in for his turn. Is it just me, or does he resemble a young (and right-handed) Jim Kaat? Reluctantly, at last, we departed the minor league area to attend the major league ST game. Here is an old friend collecting his thoughts during the National Anthem, standing beside someone else. Guess which one staked the Pirates to an early lead with a long home run. Hint: it wasn't the Florimonster. Trevor May pitched today, and his fastball was humming along at about 94 MPH. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing straight out to right, and the Pirates batters had little trouble making solid contact all through May's 4 2/3 inning stint, leaving a somewhat ugly 8 hit and 4 run lump on his spring record. Gregory Polanco started the mayhem with a homer to right, as the second batter of the game, and catcher Tony Sanchez added a similar shot in the fourth inning. In the meantime, a triple followed by a double plated shortstop Jung-Ho Kang with a ribbie for CF Jaff Decker, and two consecutive doubles (Polanco, Marte) in the fifth accounted for the fourth and final Pirate run. It wasn't all May's or the wind's fault though. I'm officially off the Start Aaron Hicks In The Majors bandwagon now. He took a zigzag route on Kang's wind-aided triple and I'm certain that an above average CFer would have tracked this one down to save a run. Hicks also bobbled a ball that went for a double anyway, to no additional loss to the team but significantly to my confidence in him as a fielder. Let him add some polish in AAA, I now say. As mentioned, there were two no-doubt home runs hit to right by the Pirates. To my consternation, it appeared that Torii read neither one correctly, taking a long while to realize he needed to go way back. Because he did eventually race back, it can't be that he judged them out of the park. Due to the extra lift from the wind, it didn't end up mattering, but I don't really know what to make of it. To May's credit, he worked quickly on the mound. No fiddling around, staying near the rubber between pitches. The Twins offense didn't keep up, against junkball lefty Jeff Locke. A couple of runs came in the third, tying the game for the moment, when Dozier drove in Santana with a triple and Mauer drove in Dozier with a fielder's choice to... guess where... second. Incidentally, the Pirates used a pronounced shift against Mauer, a fairly extreme one in fact in the last of his three PA. Mauer could have bunted toward third and if it was past the pitcher he could have sauntered to first base. No. He walked his first time up, hit his next one to second, and the last was an unassisted grounder to first. I guess this is playing the game the right way. Or stubbornness. Or something. But it's not making adjustments, as far as I can see. In contrast to the defensive lapses I mentioned, Brian Dozier made a very fine snare of a liner off the bat of fellow second baseman Sean Rodriguez. Since I don't have a photo of that, here is one of Dozier grounding out to short in the first inning. Not very effective, but still pretty. (Did I mention, we had nice seats behind first base, six rows up?) Speaking of not effective, here is Hunter getting thrown out trying to steal second in the third inning. Since Arcia followed with a single to center, who knows whether the inning would have resulted in more scoring than it did. Jordan Schafer, DHing because Molitor presumably wants him to bat as often as possible this spring, laid down a very nice bunt past pitcher and first baseman that left them only to watch the ball and hope it would roll foul. Oh, that reminds me, the Pirates turned up their nose at using a DH and let their pitcher bat, at least to begin the game. By the seventh inning, Molitor had removed all his starters except Schafer and Hicks. Clint Hurdle only inserted a couple of bench players, Florimon (3B) and Lambo (RF). At the end we had Nunez at short, Rosario in left (nice play on a fly in the sixth by Kang), Bernier at third, Rohlfing to catch, Brock Peterson at first, and very young prospects Levi Michael at second and Adam Brett Walker in right. Brian Duensing pitched an effective 1 1/3 innings to end the fifth and cover the sixth. His fastball was around 89 MPH, about his par. JR Graham pitched effectively in the seventh and the start of the eighth too, with his 96 MPH heater. In the Twins' seventh, Michael hit a sharp single to left following a (guess what) pop out by Nunez to the catcher to begin. Peterson struck out after a lengthy battle against Antonio Bastardo, as the light sprinkle threatened to turn to a more substantial shower. I was more than eager to see ABW get his chance, but he struck out too. I'm a big ABW backer right now. Here he is pinch running for Hunter in the fifth, rather than show you the strikeout. The eighth inning began and a couple of Pirates were retired by JR Graham. I think the umpires wanted to give him a chance to complete the inning, but after a walk, they took stock of the weather situation and, after consulting the managers, called the game. A wise decision, as by 15 minutes later the light shower had turned into a soaking rain. And thus our two weeks in Fort Myers ended on a wet note. Even in the rain, it's a nice place to spend one's time.

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.