Month: March 2012

Went to my first official baseball game for Spring Training and picked the matchup vs the Rays. I realized how far away I was from where I usually watch my Twins baseball. Of course, I was greeted by familiar faces from the outset so yeah, it was Twins baseball right away. I was amazed at how packed it was even an hour before game time. That’s my usual time to show up because I like to do what I need to and be in my seats before the anthem. I’m just that way. But you know who else is that way? Senior Citizens in Ft Myers, Florida. WOW. Lee County officials had named Thursday Senior Day and they came out in force.

The difference between this day and the B game wasn’t the players since we had had a bunch of the big names on the field the day before. It was the stands being packed with fans. And yes, a lot of Rays fans came down from whereever to see the game too. Hammond’s not really all that big folks, it gets packed easily. I would have to research the actual capacity but I would say it’s somewhat similar to how many we put into Midway for a Saints game. With the games for the entire weekend all sold out before this game even started, I can understand why they are discussing expansion plans – that’s a lot of revenue from fans that could be there that don’t know to hit the brokers outside the parking lot.

The game itself was very interesting despite the results of the score (and for the most part lack of score). It was as close to an opening day lineup option as you’re likely to see in the next few weeks. Still some names that will be new and still some that aren’t likely to make the team but for the most part, it was all familiar places in the places we are used to seeing them. Mauer was catching, Morneau was at 1B, Valencia was at 3B and Span was in CF. Things to get used to you was Plouffe in LF & Willingham in RF. The way they performed out there, I think that is likely to be the arrangement most of the time.

The position of SS was oddly familiar even though it’s manned by a new player to the team. I couldn’t have picked Jamey Carroll out of a lineup even though he’s a veteran in the league. However, he chose a familiar number. I find it even more amusing that he seems to have about the same height as the previous wearer of the #8. Li’l Nicky was built a little thicker & Jamey didn’t do any gymnastics but it was eery nonetheless. The other departure from the norm was Ray Chang playing 2B. He was solid & quick in play and got a GREAT out catch from Mauer on a Strike-out/Throw-out. He may not make the team but he was ok.

Liriano started the game off VERY well. He was confident and throwing well. Had some great K’s, nasty movement on his fast ball that confounded several of the Rays hitters and threw 3 innings in a very, very, very efficient 34 pitches. In other good news, Span definitely showed up to play. You can tell he is feeling himself and putting himself through the paces he expects to use. He’s back to his old speed in the field AND on the bases, stealing 2nd and robbing OF hits. He’s the one guy who was dependably on base during yesterday’s game. The bad news? No one seemed to be able to get him home and he was as frustrated by it as the fans. In fact, the game remained scoreless until the 9th. Other bad news? In the course of the standard spring training game, the position holders changed frequently to give the alternates a chance to get on the field. That worked out better for some than others. I continue to be disappointed by Nishioka who, after a full season and off season to rehab and learn the American style of the game, still played slow and indecisive at SS which is a real problem for me. But at least he got on base!

Not all the young guys are quite up to big league play level either. But then again, they’re not really supposed to be. One I hear mentioned well frequently is Aaron Bates. He needs a bit better work with this glove – a couple of very costly bobbles kept him from making a great impression this particular day. He did try to make up for it with a great diving grab late in the game so he’s willing to do the work – just needs more time to become consistent.

I was fairly impressed with Mastroianni who is apparently already on the 40 man roster even though I can’t recall ever having heard his name. He’s a pretty compact little guy but has a very big presence. I can’t quite describe what I mean but you can feel the energy he brings to the game and a lot of spark to running the bases. It was enough to make me want to keep my eyes on him as he comes up the ranks.

One of the other guys that I HAVE heard a lot about is J.R. Towles. He came out to do a stint behind the plate. I hope I get more chances to see him because he didn’t really do much with this opportunity. From what I saw, he’s not ready to be up yet. He was rough in catching and couldn’t put anything together hitting-wise. But it was a VERY limited opportunity so he will have more chances.

Pitching-wise, we got to see a bunch of guys come out and do their thing after Liriano finished up.  Liam Hendriks came out and looked great, Jeff Manship did a good job and it proceeded to be a “pitchers duel” kind of game from mostly familiar names. One looked familiar to me and I can only assume it’s from LAST spring training because I don’t recall him ever being up. But Daryl Thompson had a great web gem moment grabbing a line drive rebound before fans & players alike could barely blink and know what happened. Considering it was the out that ended the inning if I recall, there were a lot of smiles and high fives. Overall, it was a good day for pitching.

A couple other minor observations from the game: for all my comments yesterday about how thin Justin Morneau is, I noticed something else. He’s SMILING! A LOT. I frequently commented in past years about how tense he could be during a game and how often it worked against him at the plate. To see him relaxed and happy during random moments on and off the field really boosted my confidence about his overall condition. One of the funniest moments of the game to me was after one of the changeovers in position holders. One young guy out in RF wasn’t quite paying attention to the dugout in order to get his instructions on where to position. This left poor Jerry White doing a lot of hand-waving (kind of looked like an airplane guidance guy) trying to get ANYONE’s attention so he could give the instruction to the RF guy to come in. Finally, after practically dancing a jig, he was able to get the attention of the necessary player and get things arranged properly. The Rays 3B coach couldn’t quite hide the snigger & grin as Jerry walked back to the dugout shaking his head. Ahh… Spring Training. Bring on the Cardinals.

I grabbed this last picture just for Jamar!

Today, I made a solo trip out to Hammond for the B game – which considering who stayed behind to play the Red Sox instead of going to Port Charlotte, you might call it the A game and the Orioles the B game but who’s being technical…

The hard part of a “B” game is that they don’t do anything on the board for scoring and of course you have all the young guys that you aren’t as familiar with. So this is the first time that I didn’t have my score book that I really wished I was scoring the game. I still didn’t track the hitting lineup too well because I was wandering around a lot trying to get pictures but the highlights are that the big boys were mostly in play.

I’m not going to walk you through the game or anything but I enjoyed seeing how people were doing. Blackburn started things off very well. Mauer played 1B with Casilla at 2B and Morneau was DH’ing I think. That was about the end of the REALLY familiar – I still recognized most of the young guys since we saw half of them up in the bigs at the end of last year – Trevor Plouffe, Joe Benson, Rene Rivera… A couple I had to actually go look up. Our 3B for the whole game was a kid named Michael Hollimon. Not too bad actually. I was a little less impressed with two outfield invitees – Wilkin Ramirez & Matt Carson. It was also fun to see Paul Moliter coaching 1B since Jerry was on the road.

The sight that shocked me the most was watching Morneau come up to bat. He walked once, hit a really fun stand up double but.. you know how people have been saying he’s thinner?? HOLY CRAP, HE’S SKINNY! He still has the big shoulders but his lower body muscle mass is just gone. The tree-trunk thighs are very normal looking now for a guy of his height. Do I think it’s a problem that he looks normal? Not precisely but when you lose that much of your leg muscle mass, he is going to have to do things differently. The sad part is that he’s still wearing his pants from last year and they are super huge on him – like Liriano oversized style.

What hasn’t changed at all is Mauer’s ability to stand in the batters box and watch a pitch go by… LOL I don’t even know if the ump called this a strike or a ball but it just made me laugh anyway. As it was, Mauer was 0-2 but Chris Parmelee came out and replaced him after his two AB’s so it was just a light day at the park for him. He seems pretty comfortable at 1B now though.  It gave Rene Rivera a chance to get a little more time at catcher. I was kind of hoping to see one of the invitee or younger guys, like Towles or Herrmann but I am never really going to complain when I am getting to watch baseball. Besides, I never even looked to see who was in the lineup for the “A” game.

Even Dick Bremer preferred the B game! For the record, he’s looking skinnier too. 😉

PS. Tomorrow, I’m bringing the hubby along & we’re hitting the Rays game at home.

I’ve written often lately about how Spring Training is the time for just enjoying the fact that baseball is being played by our guys in Florida and setting aside the disagreements we’ve had with Twins management over roster decisions the past few months. I still believe that.

But I’m sitting here this morning realizing that it’s only Wednesday AND that my original Spring Training plans, had they worked out, would have had me leaving for Ft. Myers a week from today. Instead, it will be two weeks later, so I’ve got a whole THREE WEEKS to wait. Humbug.

So, perhaps it’s just my mood, but I’m going to share my grouchiness with all of you this morning.

I’ve watched most of the three Twins games that have been available on the internet and let me just say this… if Ron Gardenhire thought starting camp three days earlier than usual to work more on fundamentals was going to return this team to the days of playing baseball the “Twins Way,” he must be wanting to throw up about now.

I know the wind has been crazy during a couple of the games and that some outfielders are playing out of position a bit (Ryan Doumit played LF the other night for the first time since HIGH SCHOOL), but so far the way guys are fielding, throwing and running bases, I’m not sure three extra WEEKS would have been enough to instill fundamentals in some of these players.

With so many pitchers in camp, there’s a ton of guys who have to know they’re going to have to really stand out every time they get even an inning of work in a game. That’s unfortunate, because ideally you want to use Spring Training games to simply work on location or release point for specific pitches, without being overly concerned about whether the hitter figures out you’re throwing the same pitch over and over until it feels good.

But most of these pitchers don’t have that luxury right now. Every time one of them goes out there and walks a couple of guys or gives up more than one hit in their inning of work, they know they’re one step across the parking lot to the minor league clubhouse (or one step toward outright release). I’m not going to name names, but if you’ve been watching, you know there’s a couple of guys feeling the heat right now.

The Twins are playing another “B” game as I write this Wednesday morning. I’m not sure I like the trend toward more “B” games. I understand that with so many pitchers in camp, they simply need to get more live innings in, but those games also start to become excuses to leave starting position players home, rather than making them bus an hour away to play in that day’s “real” game.

For example, Alexi Casilla, Jamey Carroll, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are all playing in the “B” game today, while Denard Span and Josh Willingham are the only certain starting position players making the trip to Sarasota to play the Orioles (unless you want to count Ben Revere as a starter). Teams already tend not to take a full group of starters to road games, but if it gets to the point where they never take their best players, it will mean two things: The games will be less interesting for fans and pitchers will face fewer legitimate Major Leaguers as they prepare for the season.

I understand there are pros and cons to this. For example, if Babs and Andrew got their butts out of bed early enough today, they had a chance to see Lexi and the M&M boys support Nick Blackburn up close and personal without paying a nickel to do so. Also, now that minor league camp has opened, there will be guys sent across the lot every few days, so the need for “B” games becomes less important. In other words, I’m probably concerned over nothing… but hey, I’m in one of those moods so I thought I’d mention it.

Here’s another thing that’s really a good thing, but I’m going to grouch about it anyway. All-Star Twins blogger Aaron Gleeman shared the news in his blog this morning that he’s had a very successful year on the weight-loss front. This is great for Aaron and I’m happy for him… but realizing that a year ago, he outweighed me by about 120 pounds and now he’s dropped at least 25 pounds below what I’m carrying just reminds me how unsuccessful I’ve been on that front.

Finally, tomorrow is the opening day of the Big Ten Conference mens’ basketball tournament. This is usually something I more or less celebrate. In fact, for the first several years it was held, I made the trip to Chicago to attend it in person (this was before I realized that instead of fighting blizzards to attend this event, I could go to Florida to watch baseball in 80 degree weather). But this year, my Hawkeyes not only are unlikely to advance far in the tournament (I’ve become accustomed to that lately), their first game is at 10:30 in the frigging morning on Thursday! And if they beat Illinois, they turn around and play early again on Friday!

So the bad news is that I have to essentially take the entire day off from work Thursday (and maybe Friday, too) to watch Big Ten basketball all day. Hey… wait a minute… that means that, from a work perspective, this kinda may be “Friday.”

Hmmmm… I think I feel my mood improving, after all.

– JC

As this is my honeymoon and my attentions are naturally driven in multiple directions, you’ll have to forgive my less than timely addition to the baseball information. I have to admit that while JC would have spent just about every day at the baseball park, I have been distracted by many other things – including a good chunk of sitting on my ass watching the birds. In fact, until today, the only baseball-oriented activity I’ve taken part in was talking to the various baseball fans I ran into about their respective teams which included the Orioles, the Twins, the Phillies, the Red Sox

Of course, the whole reason PLANNED to come down here in March was so that we could work some baseball into the mix. So of course you knew it had to come up the schedule eventually. We had left the possible attendance of the Monday night Red Sox game as a “gameday decision” and once we saw the traffic backup going in the direction of the Lee County Sports Complex? yeah, we decided to go for a day game. Silly me thought I’d be able to find somewhere on Ft Myers TV a place that carried Spring Training games.. I was wrong.

(As it turns out, I saw from the score that that was likely a very good decision! Especially as our replacement plans included a fantastic seafood dinner off Ft Myers beach with a view of the marina & the pelicans.)

So today we ventured out to Hammond Stadium, knowing that the team had an away game so the place would be mostly empty and be a good time to acquaint ourselves with the park, the seating, and maybe even see some of the players who stayed behind. That made for a great couple of hours. We got to see Justin Morneau, Drew Butera, Denard Span and a bunch of other guys that I didn’t really recognize but a couple looked familiar.

We also checked out the field and planned out what seats we would like to be able to get.. tried to buy tix at the window but they didn’t have what we wanted so we’ll have to hit the ticket brokers in the parking lot when we get there on Thursday. We decided we’re going to go to the Rays game. Of course, it’s Senior Day that game so… that could make things interesting. Not to mention what it could do to the parking & traffic situation.

While we were hanging out, we started a convo with an older guy who was wearing “official-looking” Twins paraphanalia so I thought he worked for the team. Turns out it was Twins minor league catcher, Danny Lehmann’s dad! We were able to say hi briefly when Danny came out of the training room to meet up with pops. Reportedly there was going to be a “B” game going on later but we hung out for awhile and left when there was not visible activity for set up. Besides, I figured it was time to head out when I started to get distracted by the birds again..

We’ll have more to share on Thursday! (and just maybe something before that)