All eyes in the ‘informed’ baseball world are on James Wood as he made headlines and the lede for MLB Network’s morning show today after he obliterated two baseballs in his first five at-bats. But hey, Dylan Crews smoked to liners to the outfield that were caught. Both were well over 100 mph, and BABIP didn’t work for him — a different story for Robert Hassell III who has the highest batting average of this trio (small sample size alert) at .600. Hassell has smoked three line drives into the outfield with two going oppo.
The other notable prospect is Brady House, and he gets the start today at third base in place of Nick Senzel who manager Dave Martinez said is sick. Of note, he is playing in back-to-back games. He smoked a pitch that the wind blew back enough that it didn’t go out as you can see in the video below:
Wood’s homer was knocked down by the wind too that was blowing from left-to-right field, and he still had enough mustard on it to sneak it over the 400 foot marker in center field. On a normal day that ball smacks high off of the batter’s eye.
Unfortunately today’s game is not on radio or TV, and MLB’s page is inaccurate so far for the play-by-play. For instance, Wood’s walk yesterday still is not showing up on MLB’s stat page. Lewin Diaz‘s home run was credited to Hassell, and that was later corrected. What else is wrong?
MLB must require video and/or radio coverage for every Spring Training game at a minimum. The fans deserve better. Any way, today’s starter is Josiah Gray, and he is set to throw about 35 pitches +/- and hopefully goes two full innings. Tomorrow’s starter is Zach Davies. On Wednesday Jackson Rutledge gets a short-rest start, and Patrick Corbin goes on Thursday on regular rest.
Here is the lineup:
1. SS CJ Abrams 2. RF Lane Thomas 3. 1B Joey Gallo 4. C Keibert Ruiz 5. DH Jesse Winker 6. 3B Brady House 7. 2B Luis Garcia Jr. 8. CF Victor Robles LF 9. Jacob Young
The outfield has Jacob Young in left field even though, last year, he proved to be the better defensive center fielder over Victor Robles. It is Spring Training, and we know this means little. Martinez already acknowledged that the two would compete for the starting CF job.
