Made it to Florida. Weather is, of course, perfect.
The park in Dunedin is nice, roughly 5500 seats.
Johnny wrote up recap of the game but thought I'd mention things that stood out to me.
- Jesse Litsch didn't look good at all. He had done pretty well this spring before this, so I don't want to read too much into one bad start, but today he was hit hard and often. All pitchers go through a sore arm period during spring, so I was wondering if that was what was Jesse was dealing with.
- Rajai Davis started the game with a home run and also had a single and a double. He made a really nice catch in CF too. He is growing on me.
- Jose Bautista did show a lot of range at third. I'm still thinking I like him better in RF, but with his bat he can play anywhere. He missed a pick off throw at third from JP Arencibia. It was a tough play with the runner on third diving back to the bag at the same time the ball was arriving. It was a bad choice by JP to make the throw but Jose should have caught it. It cost us a couple of runs.
- Brett Lawrie made two really nice plays at third. One he ranged a long way to his left to get a ground ball, the next was a short pop up that he broke in on well and made the play. Only saw him bat once and it was a ground out. If his defense is what's holding him back from making the majors, we should see him soon.
- Anthony Gose, hit a grounder down the first base line and really turned on the jets and got us a triple. He came into the game as a pinch runner on second and I was looking forward to seeing him steal, but the next two batters walked, so there wasn't much opportunity.
- Camp, Rauch and Frasor each looked good in their inning of work. Wil Ledezma far less so. He got a strikeout then double, single, single, walk and walk before he left the game. Winston Abreu gave up a bases clearing double to bring in all of Ledezma's runners.
- The Phillies had 2 sons of former Jays in the game. Josh Barfield played second and John Mayberry, Jr played some first base.
Tomorrow we get to see the Jays play Pittsburgh in McKechnie Field in Bradenton, hopefully I can find it.