Friday, March 2, 2012

Happy Days In Tampa

Today, the city braced for the opening of the baseball season.

The defending AL East Champions took on the USF bulls. We won 11-0 and the Bulls had 4 hits and 2 errors. Three, if you watched the game live.

In terms of salient details, here is what this first game told us about the season ahead:

1. I saw 5 Yankee pitchers all wearing numbers in the 90's and none identified on the printed 40 man roster.

2. The Yankees began the game with 7 of 9 starters; Russell Martin and Cano were the absentees.

3. My buddy and I had seen Cano in a separate batting cage taking a form of BP and he was awesome. I knew from the workout that he wasn't slated to play at 1pm. There was another dude with him ( also a lefty hitter ) who was hugely impressive in terms of stroke and power. If I knew who it was, I would say. But he was pretty young looking ( who isn't ?).

4. After two at bats, all the regulars were gone. The only names I recognized were Colin Curtis ( outfielder with speed, who was 2-3 or 3-4 ) and Brandon Laird. Brandon played first ( he is a gold glove 3rd baseman at AAA) and looked very comfortable there. He might have been 1-3 with a single through the infield.

5. Jorge Vasquez did not have a good day ( I think he was AAA HR champ last year ). He had 2 or 3 at bats as DH and did little.

5-A Some dude named Almonte ( last name ) had a good day on offense and no problems on defense ( OF).

6. Nothing of note happened. No HRs. Not much offense from the Bulls. No special plays from the Yanks. A nice Dp or two, but no fantastic defense.

7. Pretty much what you want to happen against a college team. Not humiliating ( e.g. a 24 run Yankee inning ); not surprising ( e.g. yanks shut out for 7 innings on 1 hit ); not much.

So tomorrow, the season opens. We travel to Clearwater for Yanks/Phillies.

Maybe someone will play that has a chance to be in NYC next year.

2 comments:

el duque said...

When does the stool sample analysis come back?

Joe De Pastry said...

I think that lefty hitter was Jon Weber.