Spring Over the Airwaves

A little slow on the uptake, I realized at about 3:10 pm today that the Tigers/Mets Spring Training game was on the radio.  I promptly tuned in and caught the action beginning with the top of the seventh.  Rudy Darrow was on the hill, and he's a young side-armer, who's been steadily working his way on up through the ranks of the minors.  He ended last year at AA Erie and had a good stint in the Arizona Fall League.  He began with two easy 3-1 groundouts.  Then he walked a batter and gave up two singles (one drove in a run), and then struck out the final batter he faced, for a total of six batters.  Jim and Dan were impressed with the late movement on his fastball, and with his slider.  They mentioned he'll need to work on a pitch for left-handed batters (and the two hits off him came from leftys).   Darrow may quickly make his way through to the bigs if he continues on his current trajectory.

I also heard Cabrera's 7th inning jack, and then Mike Hessman hit an absolute bomb in the eighth to straight away center, which is 410 or 420 feet at Joker Marchant Stadium, and Jim and Dan were in awe.  As you may know, Hessman is out of minor league options, and his chances of making the big club are not that high (with first and third base effectively log-jammed, and there's that thing about needing a back-up centerfielder), so his days as a Mud Hen/Tiger may well be numbered.

It sure made the world feel right again to have baseball on the radio.  I wish more spring games were broadcast.  I'm glad I tuned in as it was the last game for some time in which our WBC-bound players would be with our club.