By Frobby
March 14 vs. Tampa
The defense was really uninspiring today.
1. In the first, Trey Mancini in RF looked very Trumboesque, getting tentative on a catchable liner and then letting the short-hop bounce off his glove, allowing the hitter to advance to 2B.
2. Chris Johnson made a nice diving stop and throw while Miley was in, and the ball took a wicked hop to his backhand side. Best play of the day.
3. Britton induced a chopper over the mound that looked playable for Andino, who didn’t pursue it and it was too far for Hardy to reach. The next hitter hit a soft chopper to a Johnson’s left that at first I thought was a DP ball, but Johnson chose to throw to first. Not sure it would have been a DP, but I’m pretty sure they could have cut down the lead runner. Later in the inning, a grounder deflected off Johnson’s glove for a single; a play Manny makes 4 times out of 5. Zach allowed two runs but the entire inning was ground balls and strikeouts.
4. Aneury Tavarez came in to play LF and chased down a long fly in the gap but then couldn’t make the catch.
5. Logan Schafer came in to play CF and misjudged a line drive hit in front of him, got a late jump and had the ball tick off his glove trying to make a shoestring catch. Then he picked the ball up and threw a bullet to 1B and nearly nailed the runner as he rounded the bag.
6. Chris Dickerson badly misjudged a ball that sailed over his head in the RCF gap.
7. Joey Rickard, who started in LF, threw to 3B when he had no chance to get the runner and allowed the batter to advance to 2B.
8. Garabez Rosa, playing 3B late in the game, made a nice stop to his backhand side and then nearly threw away his throw to 2B, but Giovatella stabbed it on a hop to get the force.
Some other notes:
1. Rickard hit a HR that cleared the 366 foot marker in the LF gap by a wide margin. Dickerson hit one to dead center. Janish also hit a nice one to left.
2. Gentry stole 2B pretty easily, beating an accurate throw.
3. Hardy had an infield single, seemed to be moving freely.
4. Tavarez is very fast. He beat out a high chopper in the 1B hole, beat out a DP relay throw on a tailor-made DP grounder he hit, and made a force play at 2B very close.
5. Santander had two line singles, one from each side of the plate His stance from the LH side looks a bit like Eddie Murray’s.
6. Miley wasn’t very good, but his defense didn’t help him and he had a bloop hit fall in too.
7. O’Day allowed a couple of hits but got a key strikeout with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out, then got out of the inning.
8. Wilson looked bad today. Almost every ball was hit hard. There were a couple of hits that might have been caught, but they were smashed.
