Spring GameThread: Tigers @ Blue Jays

The Jays host the Tigers, and the game is on actual TV, not just on Sportsnet Now (which didn’t save us from the Sportsnet Now commercials. Once you are on Sportsnet now, you would think you could stop being subjected to the commercials.

The team announced that Jose Berrios would be the starting pitcher on Opening Day. I think we knew that, but is all nicely official now. After Jose, they plan to go Gausman, Ryu, Manoah and Kikuchi.

And Jordan Romano is day-to-day with a ‘minor ankle strain’. With about a week until opening day, I don’t know if this means he’s likely to miss it.

I like this lineup, plus or minus a spot or two.

Baseball America has a list of 20 players ‘turning heads’ in Spring Training. No surprise, Orelvis Martinez made that list:

He’s been on fire in big league camp. He’s gotten thicker, more muscular. He homered off a Triple-A pitcher in a big league game on a breaking ball. Just seeing him recognize and pick up the spin for such a young hitter compared to some other guys at that stage where you have concerns about potentially handling offpseed, he crushed it. He’s been one of the standouts so far for them. He looks like a dude, for sure. Just seeing him handle that breaking stuff from upper-level arms, not chasing, having good at-bats, it was really impressive.

He has been the most fun to watch.

Yesterday the Cardinals beat the Nationals 29 to 8. The Cardinals scored 15 runs in the 8th inning.

Games like this are why they used to allow teams to end spring games or end spring innings early. MLB has forbidden that now, I guess, because of the fan interest in spring games. A few years ago, no one paid much attention to spring games, but now it is a moneymaker for MLB. We watch them on TV. Thousands of people go to Florida to see the games. So MLB forgets that these games mean nothing, that the games are just to get the players ready for the season. Having a pitcher throw a ton of pitches, and get pummeled really doesn’t help anyone.