THOUGHTS ON OPENING DAY
The thing I look for on opening day is if we see a continuation of what we saw in spring training. So let's go through it.
Jordan Luplow going 0-fer. He was like 0-15 in ST and he went 0-3 today. A little concerning that his day was essentially over after making that diving catch. Is he hurt? If not, he certainly is not hitting. Now, some people want to write off last year to him playing hurt. But look at his batting averages over his four years in the majors: .205, .186, .276 and, last year, .192. Now I know he hits lefties really well but a closer look says that this is based mostly on 2019. If you throw out 2019 he is very pedestrian vs LH pitchers (OPS around .730), but pathetic across the years against RH pitching. So, if he isn't injured I will cut him some slack but had Ahmed Rosario started in CF today and led off, we had a decent chance to win that game, even with shaky CF defense.
Shane Bieber throwing a lot of pitches up and away on the glove side. He seemed to do this a lot in ST and he did it again today on occasion. These pitches are ones that NO hitter will swing at, meaning, to me, they are not intentional. I will credit the 3 walks and 2 wild pitches to the conditions today. We will see though.
Batting against mediocre pitching - Towards the end of ST we faced some middle of the road starting pitching and they shut down our offense. Today was more of the same against Boyd. Geez, imagine what will happen when we play against GOOD pitching!?!
Jake Bauers and Ben Gamel not hitting - 0-1 and 0-1 with a walk today.
Eddie Rosario with that loopy swing that creates weak ground balls to the right side - Happened repeatedly in ST and again multiple times today. He looks like his wrist hurts or something because he is not hitting the ball firmly most of the time.
Roberto Perez hitting and walking with confidence - Both during ST and today.
Jose Ramirez hitting (or not) in the clutch - Look, Ramirez has had problems hitting in the clutch. It seemed better this spring but did not translate today.
Yu Chang - He didn't produce again today. He didn't produce all last year. In fact, in the majors, he has never produced. He looked a lot like that bad Yu Chang near the end of ST and that translated again today.
Josh Naylor - Struggling in the field, scuffling at the plate. Ditto for ST and today's game.
Andres Gimenez - Struggled near the end of ST but, even in struggling, you can see that "it" is in there. Ditto for him hitting today.
James Karinchak - Brain farts in ST and today. You can't walk a guy an inning in the big leagues. You have to be, at worst, 1 walk every 2 innings. He has to get better but it was encouraging that he got out of the inning without sriking out the side.
Bryan Shaw - He looked reborn in ST and again today, even in bad conditions.
So, although Tito likes to caution us that ST trends can be a mirage, it looks like
ALTERNATE SITE
The taxi squad and the alternate site team look about right to me. You want to keep Gose motivated and that is one way you can do it. The question mark for me was that I didn't see Tyler Freeman's name on the list although we was with the team all ST (Arias was sent down). You could say it is because of Freeman's inexperience but, if you compare levels played between Arias and Freeman, they are the same. The only difference between them is that Arias was acquired in the Clevinger trade and I would guess it would look good to have players from that trade closer to the majors. Let's hope it isn't that AND it isn't that Freeman is hurt as he took a pitch off the wrist later in ST, although he played, and got a hit, the next game. So, if Freeman is not hurt, then not having him at the alternate site is something I could live with, although everything would say he should be ahead of Arias at this point in reality and in the eyes of management. Let's hope he is healthy.
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