After spending the weekend either in lab or watching UNC get slaughtered by Duke, I sat down and spent a little time tonight sifting through the spring box scores to see if anything interested happened. Interesting during spring training is a relative term, of course, because in order for it to be interesting it’s got to have relevance on the baseball games that will actually count and those don’t start for a month.
Keeping in mind my post from last week about things to watch during exhibition games, there are a couple things that stand out. Kevin Hart walking four batters in an inning during Saturday’s tie against the Phillies is certainly not a good thing. It’s just one inning and Dan McCutchen wasn’t great in his first outing of the spring, but I’ll again mention that Hart’s struggles with the Pirates last year really stemmed from his inability to get ahead in the count. Four walks in an inning is not a good sign. Hopefully we’ll see something better next time he takes the mound.
There were also a couple things worth noting from today’s game. Bobby Crosby had two hits including a homer while playing first base. I’m not sure it’s worth reading in to him seeing some action at first (in his two other spring appearances he played shortstop), but he has gotten about the same amount of work as Ronny Cedeno, who’s 1-for-8, to this point. John Raynor, who has to make the team because of his status as a Rule 5 player, had a double and a triple and is 4-for-10 so far in the early part of the spring. His potential competition, Brandon Moss, Steve Pearce, and Jonathan Van Every are a combined 0-for-21. Finally, Chris Jakubauskas, who’s in competition for the last spot in the bullpen, got lit up for three runs in an inning and two-thirds today.
None of these things really mean anything this early in the spring, but trends all have to start somewhere.
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