Sunday Bantering and Spring Game Thread

One spring game and one spring win.

Anthony Alford showed off his speed, he’s going to have to do that a lot over the next few weeks. And Trent Thornton looked very good. Jordan Romero also looked good, throwing 97 mph. He is a long shot to make the pen but if he throws that hard, who knows.

We also got good work from Sam Gaviglio, A.J. Cole, Brian Moran, Phillipe Aumont and Yennsy Diaz. Jake Petricka gave up a home run and a couple of walks.

Today’s game is on TV again. We get to see Josh Donaldson in Twins colors. Anthony Kay gets the start for the Jays. He’s got an uphill battle for the 5th starter job.

Others expected to pitch:

There isn’t much else for Blue Jays news out there. Everyone is talking about the emergency goalie last night. What a cool moment in that guys life. I don’t see a baseball equivalent. I guess there could be a college guy gear up to catch. I wouldn’t want to be thrown in at catcher and have 90+mph pitches thrown at me. Never mind breaking balls. But then I wouldn’t want to be thrown in as goalie.

In the scandal that never ends, the New York Times has a story on Rob Manfred. It is a good read.

Manfred acknowledged last week that he had underestimated the anger that he would face from players and fans about his handling of the scandal and the lack of repercussions for those involved. He had assumed that if the union agreed to immunity for the Astros players, that must have reflected the sentiment of the rank-and-file. But he stood by his decisions about immunity, and his attempts at transparency.

I don’t know what can be done now but someone has to tell the Astros players to stop being jerks about it. Wearing tee shirts saying ‘Hate Us’ shows they aren’t really contrite about things. Their apologies were so bad they would have been better not saying anything. And Manfred has to stop talking. Every time he opens his mouth he makes things worse. Find someone in the commissioners office who has some PR ability, if we need to hear from them.