Play Ball!

February 25, 2009

Man, you can practically smell it in the air. Baseball is back, with 14 official Spring Training games and two exhibition games being played today. Unfortunately, the Padres are only playing an exhibition game, but it’s baseball just the same. Starting for my San Diego Padres on this beautiful spring day is #44, RHP Jake Peavy!

And now for the starting lineup this fine afternoon:

• #12 CF Scott Hairston
• #3 2B David Eckstein
• #23 1B Adrian Gonzalez
• #5 DH Kevin Kouzmanoff
• #7 LF Chase Headley
• #2 3B Edgar Gonzalez
• #25 RF Will Venable
• #4 C Nick Hundley
• #15 SS Luis Rodriguez

Very interesting lineup today. It’s very logical that Scotty is at the top and in center. I think they’ve planned to have Eckstein batting second so that makes sense too. Adrian, he’s good. Having Kouz DH is perfect, because he’s still rehabing that shoulder and it’s best that he’s not fielding yet. Chase in left is good. Edgar at third is interesting. I don’t think he’s played much third at all. And Will in right? I don’t think he played that at all last year when he was up here. Nick is going to get the majority of the time behind the plate, so he’s definitely back there. And Luis will be fighting for a spot at short.

Now, Buddy will probably switch out the whole lineup after a few innings. If you like to keep score, be careful with these Spring Training games. They can get very complicated!

Also pitching today are:

Heath Bell, Cla Meredith, Chris Britton, Wilton Lopez, Mark Worrell (who has a very funky sidearm delivery), Scott Patterson, Mike Ekstrom, and Oneli Perez.

The pitchers will basically only do one inning of work (that includes Jake). The pitchers are no where near top form yet, and so they will be taking it easy for the next few weeks. Each pitcher will throw 15-20 pitches today.

BTW, if you haven’t seen Worrell pitch yet, check out the video at the end of this entry on Corey Brock’s blog: http://coreybrock.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/02/all_eyes_on_worrell.html It’s pretty wild.

I also wanted to mention a full-page ad that was in the San Diego Union Tribune last Sunday. It was from Trevor. I seriously cried when I saw it, man. It was a great, great move by Trevor, and I am very thankful he did it.

“As I sat down and put pen to paper thinking about the best way to express my gratitude to the many people whom have had a profound effect on my time here in San Diego, a recurring theme kept coming up, just say THANKS!!

Thanks go out to my family, friends, teammates, managers, coaches, trainers, clubhouse personnel, medical staff, front office, members of the media, Qualcomm and Petco employees, and to you the fans young and old, it is all of you who give this game life. We’ve experienced extreme highs and lows; it is this that makes the risk worth the reward.

Thank you for the 16 seasons to represent San Diego both on and off the field.

My family and I will cherish the memories.

THANKS,

Hoffy

‘Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Character is what you really are; reputation is merely what you are percieved to be.’ -John Wooden “

WOW.

Well, the Padres game is starting in about 40 minutes. GO PADRES!!! 

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Written by Kaity Bergquist Posted in Dailies Tagged with awwww trevor, go padres!!, mark worrell, play ball, san diego, spring training