Today was opening day of Spring Training. This day is eagerly anticipated in the Smith household, and this year it's EARLY. The reason is that the World Baseball Tournament is being played this year, and lots of Major League players will be joining national teams and competing. Thus, the official Spring Training is a smidgen longer. Only the die hard were out today: The high temperature was 60 degrees. Now, if you are in New Haven, Connecticut and have just had 30" of snow, that seems positively balmy. If you are in Phoenix, Arizona, where the natives think anything under 70 degrees is 'freezing', then going to the ballpark today would be the equivalent of sitting outside in 40 degree weather. The Smith household are a hardy pair, and no one here seriously considered NOT going.
I'm the official Texas Ranger Spring Training reporter for this blog. The Royals and the Rangers played to a 5-5 tie today. The two runs needed to tie the game were scored in the bottom of the 9th being the result of a double and a home run by two players who don't have a prayer to make the team and will probably wind up in AA ball, so we don't care about who they are. Unless the weather is exceptionally fine, or the managers have some kind of brain fart, games often end in ties in S.T.
Derek Holland started the game today and pitched a strong three innings. He was working on his change-up, so he did get dinged around a bit, but his fastball was lightening and low. The real disappointment today was Alexi Ogando. He couldn't even find the plate and was wilder than teenage boys out for a joy ride. He walked players, and even hit one on the shoulder. In two innings, there were three runs scored on him. By contrast Robby Ross looked really, really good. His innings were clean, with only one hit by the Royals. He threw a boatload of strikes, and pitched quite efficiently for so early in the season.
Nelson Cruz served notice today that he understands his role is to pick up the power void left by Hamilton. He hit a two run tater today right out of the ballpark over the center fielder's head onto the grass. The Surprise Park has a grass hill behind center field the same as the Arlington Ball Park, and I found myself looking for the chubby teenager who jumps the wall in Arlington onto the grassy hill and snags home run balls in his baseball glove. David Murphy got a solid hit as did Craig Gentry who also stole a base. Kinsler is still working on his timing and is hitting everything on the ground to the left. Elvis is also warming up his hitting timing, but made two stellar plays at shortstop. The defensive play of the day goes to Mike Ott, who has a decent chance to make the club, He corralled a scorcher down the third base line. He picked the ball behind the bag, whirled and lofted it straight into Moreland's glove at first base.
Other idiosyncrasies: Pettis and Anderson (long time Texas Ranger coaches) have swapped on-field coaching positions. This year Pettis will be in the 3rd base box while Anderson will man the 1st base box. If anything these ridiculous bat handles are an even smaller circumference than last year. We already had one shatter when the hitter hit the ball. The bat handle splintered, and the pointed shard of the barrel portion flew several feet through the air into the infield along with the ball. I guess some pitcher is going to have one of his eyes put out before Major League Baseball does something about these toothpick handle bats.
The oddest thing about today was the absence of Michael Young. Elvis took his place during the infield warm up exercises, but I have to wonder how the players feel about him being gone. I'll bet they miss him. Kinsler has patterned his entire career using Michael Young as his blueprint. I also noticed that NOBODY has the number '10' on his uniform.
This was the first of seventeen games over the next month. WooHoo - baseball is back!
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