Grapefruit League Game 1: Minnesota Twins at Boston Red Sox
Posted by SBG on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Go ahead and get your stretches in, do a little running in the outfield. Get an inning or two of work in and hit the showers. It's spring training game one and the SBG Nation needs to work out the kinks.
Dammit, mlb.tv is giving me the NESN feed. This almost certainly means way more focus on the Red Sox than I'd prefer. In spring training, I'm most interested to see guys I've never really seen before, or I haven't seen much of. The NESN guys probably won't have much interesting to say about those guys. Oh well, could be worse.
Twins baseball is on the air!
This is what our lineup would look like if Cuddyer, Morneau, and Punto got injured. That would not be a good situation.
Who do you suppose weighs more: Schilling or Ponson? I say it's a toss-up.
Okay, maybe Schilling's lighter. He's certainly not looking svelte, though.
First spring training pitch goes for a foul ball. What does that portend for the season ahead?
two more weeks of winter...
Castillo grounds out to Lugo, but makes it close at first base. This reminds me, I found something pretty cool over at fangraphs yesterday: Luis Castillo was second in MLB last year in infield hits. Only one behind Ichiro! and with a pretty big lead on Jose Lopez. For all of the grousing about his lack of hustle to first base, it'd be tough to notice it looking at the numbers.
Garza doesn't have it easy here at the top of the order. Lugo, GGOW, and Papi.
Dammit, mlb.tv is giving me the NESN feed.
It helps to put some time in with CarTalk on the MPR. "Wars that an err-rah?"
Hey, at least you are watching the game, ubes. I'm huddled in front of the radio.
True, true, true.
Actually, there was just kind of a funny moment. The Red Sox were promoting Fenway as a place to hold events--like weddings. How much do you suppose it would cost to hold a wedding at Fenway?
Well, it would have prevented me from getting married, that's for sure.
Hehe, Ortiz's got nothing on Garza. Nothing.
Sit Down, Big Papi!
Nice--he is left-handed, though. Maybe you need to mirror image that graphic or something.
It's spring training, man... I'm working out the kinks!
Hey, like any good beta tester, I'm just pointing out the kinks!
Ortiz needs some quality time on the stairmaster.
Rondell White, first pitch hacking. He's ready for the games to start counting!
I can't believe that the Red Sox are seriously considering Joel Piniero as their closer. Simply can't believe it. I mean, he's probably a much better reliever than he is a starter at this point, but a team with the Red Sox' resources should be able to do better.
89 piasters for mlb.tv. Seems like last year was 60. Gold didn't even do 48% this last year...
That's what I recall as well.
I think I'm going to resent the Red Sox this year more than usual. While Liriano is out, the Red Sox were able to add someone basically just as good simply by throwing money at the problem.
Bartlett with the third hit the first time through the lineup.
Good start. Meaningless, but good start.
I have many large grains of salt on hand for this evening.
You can see the kind of respect that JB demands when a team is willing to go to their closer against him the first chance that they get. Also, I'm not sure if Schilling needed to leave the game because he was afraid of JB or he was just humiliated that he gave up a hit to Ken Harvey.
Mid season form with that analysis!
Man, Tyner hitting second. What's next, Tyner at DH?
Not in time...heh.
Infield hit for Mauer!! Okay, E-6. Lugo wasn't aware that Mauer is sneaky fast.
Ah - dup check caught my double post. 'Zat new, Stick?
Nope, that's always been there.
I can hear the Red Sox fans grumbling about Pinata already.
Blown save-esque.
But if I were a Sox fan, I'd be blaming Lugo
I have a feeling the Sox fans have more than enough blame to spread around.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rondell has an awesome Spring Training. He seems like a fastball hitter, and they seem to throw a lot of fastballs in Spring Training.
I recall him getting off to a good start last year ST as well. Could be imagining things though.
I think that's right.
Hmmm...Baker and Garza pitching on the same day. I'm not sure if this has any meaning or not. Not a great pitch on the hit there.
Maybe a little direct competition?
Anyone else watching on TV? I really am not liking the new look for the hats with the weird curve over the ear.
I won't be here long, got a baby to hold- but its nice to have a game to chat about.
Another hit straight up the middle. Baker doesn't seem to be messing too badly with their timing. Or something. Of course, Schilling gave up two hits up the middle, too. Where are those grains of salt again??
Useless stat warning!! Useless stat warning!! NESN showing Coco Crisp's batting average by position in the order, claiming that he can be a much better 7th hitter than 8th hitter or hitter at the top of the order.
Then they totally redeem themselves by calling Nathan the most underrated closer in the game today.
The shift almost saved Baker's behind there. If Castillo would've fielded that cleanly, I think he could've gotten Ortiz.
Man, that was '06 vintage Baker: lots of strikeouts, lots of hits.
And he struck out the Cap'n.
We need to get LeCroy some more ABs against LHP. Bring us your lefties!
I broke down and purchased Gameday Audio today, mostly out of fear that I wouldn't be able to get 1500 in my living room (so far I can), but I'm liking this. It's a nice break to hear the other guys' feed for a while.
Unless it's the Chi-Sox feed, anybody is an improvement over our guys. ((Commenting late and already bitching about the radio team--Get well, Herb)
Castillo not looking sharp in the field this evening. I have a funny feeling that he's kind of dogging it because he knows it's a meaningless game and he needs to stay healthy. That might be the rose-tinted glasses talking, though.
Sigh. Baker's not backing up my optimism for him very well here.
By the way, I'm working on the comment form, in case you are wondering. Spring training.
That's kind of what it looked like.
"Matt Kubel" could apparently step into the DH spot.
The announcers are in spring training, too!
Amen to that.
So as I predicted, the MLB.tv quiet time between innings has been xferred to NESN sponsors. Still need to figure out to make this nat'l ad revenue...
Danny says Castillo was limping.
When is Castillo not limping?
Damn. That was scary. Tavarez throws one straight at JB's head. JB passes his dodge check, though.
Wily Mo Pena just said that he wants to "work his ass off on defense."
Tyny base hit sighting!
MAUER POWER!
Mau-ah Pow-ah!
Mauer Power.
And right after the NESN guys were saying he doesn't hit very many HR for a #3 hitter.
Schilling: "I felt a little bit stronger than I thought I would. So that's nice."
This just in: Torii's brain still hasn't reported to camp yet.
I'm late to the party and not "watching" or listening to the game. But re: RonLF's spring last year: .406 BA (13 for 32; 25 total bases for a healthy .781 SLG)
They don't have gameday for this game, do they?
Nope. Only options are to buy Gameday audio or MLBtv feed, I guess.
Don't forget flux capacitor or oscillation overthruster. Those are options, too.
You'd think he just beam himself to Fort Myers.
No kidding. Where's Scotty when you need him?
We've had our chance! Your Overthruster's for shit! We're lost!
I didn't do either of those when I was on the West Coast, but not getting any Twins baseball is really going to get to me now that I'm so much closer (Madison). I'd take recommendations from the rest of SBG Nation...
Yeah, but then his shoulder stopped healing.
Tina Cervasio graduated from U. Maryland with a BA from the College of Journalism. According to Algonad, maybe not the math nerd?
Okay, so now the Schilling press conference is getting on my nerves. I'm not even sure who is pitching for the Twins right now.
Who cares who's pitching for the Flyover State Twins? It's Curt F%*$^* Schilling! Bloody Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooock!
Remy just offered the other guy in the booth $10 if he could name all the Twins on the field. He couldn't, claiming #25 wasn't on his roster. That was pretty funny, though.
BTW, I enjoyed the "Joel Pinata" line up above. Hadn't heard that one before.
I gotta believe our Seattle resident ubelmann has heard it few times.
Yeah, it was a big smash with the kids last summer.
Weird - mlb.tv is showing 1-4 in the bot of 4th, but scoreboard shows tied at 4-4 in bot of 5th. Twins get three runs in the top of the 5th.
It's spring training for the scorekeepers, too.
LeCroy on at first, Elrod up to bat. I say put on the hit-and-run. It's a tie game, we've got to get something started.
I'm getting a 404 on Gameday Audio -- did someone say they're listening at MLB.com right now?
Sorry I'm late for the party, got kid's choir duties Wed. evenings.
It's working fine for me.
Yahoo.com is running a boxscore, but no Gamechannel beyond the basic score-by-innings.