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.  

More Arizona Fall League

Some stats from our AFL players, playing for the Mesa Solar Sox.  Jeff Larish hit the spotlight in a piece on Tigers.com, trying to improve versatility so he can land on the 2009 big-league roster.

In his AFL blog, Zach Simons reports that Casper Wells must lead the league in HBP.  He also says that Jeff Larish has the hot stick after a bit of a slow start.   He now has 3 HR, and leads the league in RBIs.  Zach himself had 5 scoreless innings after his (not so great) first outing.

Hitting:

Jeff Larish:  playing 1B & 3B, 19 G, 81 AB, 21 RBI, 10 BB, 15 SO, .309 AVG, .494 SLG, .376 OBP, .870 OPS

Will Rhymes:  2B, 16 G, 71 AB, 7 RBI, 4 BB, 9 SO, .296 AVG, .310 SLG, .329 OBP, .639 OPS

Casper Wells:  CF, 13 G, 42 AB, 9 RBI, 6 BB, 13 SO, .286 AVG, .452 SLG, .455 OBP, .907 OPS

Pitching

Luis Marte, 2-1, 6.00 ERA, 4 G, 12.0 IP, 4 BB, 16 SO, 1.83 WHIP

Casey Fien, 2-0, 0.84 ERA, 8 G, 10.2 IP, 0 BB, 11 SO, 0.75 WHIP--no walks, he might deserve a shot based on that alone!

Zach Simons, 0-1, 3.86 ERA, 8 G, 9.1 IP, 5 BB, 4 SO, 1.50 WHIP

Rudy Darrow, 1-0, 2.89 ERA, 8 G, 9.1 IP, 4 BB, 13 SO, 1.29 WHIP

Again, it's difficult, because this remains a small sample size, and the season ends Nov. 20, and these numbers aren't put up against current big league talent, but it's still fun to check in on these youngsters.