ashbury

He did not impress in his final spring start. The wind was blowing steadily to right. You could chalk that up to bad luck, or you could view it as him letting the Pirate batters have their way. I choose the latter. I would like a pitcher I can trust when the wind is unfavorable (righty facing lefties in this case). A quick tuneup in Rochester and maybe he smooths out a few rough spots like that with good coaching.

I didn't get that close to any of the players, but I seem to have come home from Ft Myers with some kind of virus myself. Bleh.

Reminds me of diplomatic negotiations that are described as "frank and candid", and wind up with neither side budging.

They entered spring training with 22 pitchers on the 40-man. This reflects a real lack in confidence in any of several players to be a lock to make the 25-man - or conversely a lack of scouting/evaluation decisiveness on guys like the ones you named who appear to be on a bubble. I wouldn't want to completely DFA any of the ones you named, but then I didn't like the 22-man approach in the first place. The recent trend has been to clutter the 40-man with players just good enough that you'll lose them if you DFA them but not good enough to trade for anything of value, even 2-for-1. I keep hoping/expecting a trade to free up the needed space nevertheless.

Hicks was the key to the decision making in CF, with Rosario second in line to control his own destiny. Aaron demonstrated an appalling lack of polish on defense for a player of his age and experience, and failed to distinguish himself at bat this spring, or in winter ball for that matter. He's the most talented of the group under consideration, and the decision was apparently made that the best chance for him to develop into a major leaguer is to spend time in AAA. Rosario was an outside shot at best and didn't do enough to convince. So the starting CF role gets defined by default, with the two guys who have low upside but a track record. Ugh to that, and I wanted more off-season options, but given the options now, I grudgingly concur. On pitching, Milone always seemed the default option due to his handedness, if he put up only decent spring numbers. He's very hittable, but probably the best of a limited set of options. I still would have rolled with May, on the principle of getting our youngsters the experience they need at the major league level, but I can understand this choice. If Big Pelf is disappointed at the decision, I can understand and would think less of him as a competitor if he weren't, but if he's angry, then I'm in turn disappointed in him. Pitch well in the bullpen (though I expect only modest increase in radar gun numbers) and the opportunities to start again will still happen. A trade would also make sense, if some GM is willing to offer a significant prospect who doesn't need 40-man protection, but I don't expect this to materialize. (Maybe a multi-player trade, and I don't mean Duensing as a sweetener. )

You're being kind of a... nah, you're right.

At least Manfred didn't call the internet writer a p-word or anything.

I don't see the appearances by the non-roster guys as anything more than reward for hustling all during camp, or whatever. Walker and Michael in particular are still seasons away from a call-up, unless they go nuts in Chattanooga this year. Peterson's the exception, being disaster insurance at first base. I just viewed it as letting them enjoy a taste, more than a chance for judgement on how well they'd do in one try at the plate. They all could have flinched at a slider for called strike three like the unlucky guy I mentioned at the top of this report, and I'd still have been fine with it.

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.