Another beautiful and cloudless day for the game today between the Reds and Rockies. Wind was nearly non-existent. The men in purple ran out close to opening day lineup while the Reds brought their ‘B’ team featuring Brandon Phillips.
Jordan Lyles gave up two runs in the first two innings, one of them unearned on an error by Dan Descalso with two outs. Then it was a pitching duel against the roster fillers for the rest of the game. The big news was that CarGo and Tulo both made their spring debuts batting 2-3 in the lineup. They only had two plate appearances each and left the game after the third or fourth inning. They haven’t shown anything yet as Tulo struck out watching and popped out up the elevator while CarGo had a comebacker and a walk.
Rex Brothers made his first appearance of the Cactus League season after working with bullpen coach Darren Holmes. If anything, it was a confidence builder for Rex Brothers as he threw 8 pitches in a clean inning. I thought I was watching Rex Brothers pitching in the third and fourth inning and I convinced EdtheUmp that it was Brothers. It turned out that it actually was Aaron Laffey. His body build and throwing motion looked like a clone of Brothers!
Thomas Kahnle was terrific in his one inning of work despite one walk issued. The rest of the bullpen shut out the Reds’ organizational fillers after the second inning. Descalso had an RBI single for the Rockies’ first run of the game. In the eighth inning, Matt McBride started the inning with a double. He moved to third on Trevor Story’s single. Rafael Ynoa grounded into a double play allowing McBride to score the tying run.
Another important player making an appearance today was none other than David Dahl. In his first plate appearance, he hit a long line drive into the gap that was run down by an outfielder. Then he had a chance to win the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning with two on and two outs. Ground out. Ball game tied 2-2.
I don’t think I heard any Tulo chants at SRF@TS today when I heard at least three at the Peoria Complex. Pretty strange to me. The crowd was probably the smallest of the season at SRF. I never experienced a clear path driving into the parking lot.
The Rockies have a split squad twin billing tomorrow (Tuesday) at home vs. the Mariners and on the road at Dodgers. Eddie Butler makes his start at the Dodgers. This game will be televised on MLBN on a delayed basis. If you have MLB.tv you probably can see the Dodgers-Rox game live.
I met up with Ed the Ump at the Tavern Grille. Ed looked at me like I had too much purple Kool Aid in my system. I handed him $100 when he was expecting $50. That’s how much confidence I have in the Rockies to record at least 72 wins. LV odds are currently and 71.5 for over/under in win total. Go Rockies! Gimme 82 wins for a good measure. 🙂
Enjoying the reports, RMH. I hope you didn’t mix up Brother’s fastabll with Aaron Laffey’s since Laffey is the softest tosser we’ve had in camp since Jamey Moyer … in TV clips both Tulo and Cargo look noticeably slimmer — is that true in person? I won’t pretend to know anything about training regimes, but in general it’s probably a good idea for both of those guys to put more emphasis on flexibility and less on strength, so I would… Read more »
Yes, I could tell with my naked eyes that Brothers’ velocity was way more than Laffey’s. I can also confirm that you are correct that both stars are in much better shape. Cargo made a catch of a slicing liner that I thought was going to drop for a single. He glided over and made the catch easily. Definitely back to full speed. And his arm was a cannon and nobody wanted to run on him.
RMH, I made a quick trip to Arizona, just enough time to catch a couple games — one of them I sat down the LF line and Tulo came over to sign an autograph. He’s downright skinny! Looks more like DJ now, the rangy SS type. Or maybe more like the Tulo we first saw in 2006. He seems to be in great shape and he’s locked in at the plate again (didn’t get to see him do much in… Read more »
Ag, I knew Tulo was in better shape but I thought my mind was playing games with me thinking that he was not that much skinnier. Now you just confirmed that what I saw was real. The thick wide football thighs were replaced by the flexible SS type thighs. And the butt is more flat too and not as roundish. LOL CarGo looks more fit but not as dramatic as Tulo’s makeover. He definitely lost some weight and he looked… Read more »
RMH, I missed that with 1st to 3rd thing with Cargo, but I did see him make a great throw from RF and generally seem to cover a lot more ground than he did last year. “Best Shape of His Life” is of course a spring training cliche, but it certainly seems to apply to the Big 2 this spring.