Thoughts for a Wednesday

SEASON SO FAR

Soooooo, the team with a $278 million payroll beat the team with a $90 million payroll 2 out of 3.  That makes sense.

Beiber and the bullpen held out in game 1.  Makes perfect sense

Gaddis CAN pitch against Oakland but CANNOT pitch against the Yankees.  No surprise there.

Battenfield pitches OK but the bullpen gives it up and we don't hit in the clutch.  Things happen.  The bullpen can't be great all the time.

Maybe I am more resigned than most.  I saw us losing 2 out of 3 in thise series when I looked over the schedule before the season.  In fact, at this point, I had us at 6-7 and we are actually 7-6.    No problem right now.  

Can things go sideways in Washington?  Sure they can.  That's baseball.  Any team can beat any other team on any night.  But we likely won't have to face one of their two best pitchers, so far, as MacKenzie Gore goes tonight.  Washington is rebuilding.  We have a chance to win the series and get back to 2 games over .500.

JOSH BELL.  WHAT DO YOU DO?

So, to be a masochist I looked up how Jose Abreu is doing.  Sure, he is hitting .300.  But he has 3 RBIs.  Josh Bell has 4 RBIs.  Neither has a HR yet.  Am I happy with what I see from Bell?  Absolutely, positively NOT.   The guy's swing is just crap.  I can't believe that this was always his spring but he now has a groundball swing.   He has killed us in some games and will continue to kill us in others until he finds his swing.    But, for those looking for greenness on the other side, I am not thinking it is there, yet.  While Bell is looking more and more like Bobby Bradley last year, you gotta hope he will pop out of this.  He is certanly beloved in Washington so maybe he will relax and start swinging the bat well in D.C. which will lead to him having a great rest of the season.

AMED ROSARIO

Look, Amed will be Amed.  We all love him.  We all hate him.   But, for me, I would not cry if we traded him right now if we got a decent return.With the way he plays he is gone after this year.  There is really no reason to keep him.  In fact, even if we are in contention, I am dangling him at the deadline...or even right now.  If we get overwhelmed then we trade him.  I doubt we will but you can always hope, right.  If you don't get overwhelmed with a trade offer too good to refuse then you just play the string out with Rosario and let him walk in free agency.  He certainly will be motivated to perform not only for the team, the city and his teammates, but also for the payday he hopes to get this off-season.

MINORS LAST NIGHT

Bauny Munoz had a good start for Lynchburg.  I hope his good season continues but he is in his 6th year in the organization and he has yet to make it out of low A, having pitched there last year.  I would have much rather seen how he did in the bullpen in Lake County.

On that note, it is interesting that Cleveland is signing their international free agent position players young but their international free agent pitchers older.  I see the logic as it is becoming apparent that their is little wiggle room from the time one of these guys signs to when they are first eligible for Rule 5 and, eventually, for minor league free agency.  They get their college pitchers mature, why not their international free agent pitchers the same way?  Makes sense to me.

In Lynchburg, Antunez and Benjamin game us a glimpse of what I hope will be breakout years for these two players in the first real year of full-season ball.

In Akron Burns didn't look a lot different than last year with low fastball velocity that made him hittable.  Hopefully with warm weather he shows bettter stuff or they look to convert him to the bullpen. In a flip-the-script night, two organizational guys, Escobedo and Amdits had close to career nights and, along with Martinez, led the charge for the offense.

For Lake County, Josh Wolf has become a vulture like the legendary Julian Tavares was, coming out of the bullpen to gobble up another win when the starter didn't go 5.  I expected more out of Aaron Davenport in his first start after a decent full season with Lake County last year but his command and control looked more shaky that I remember it from last year and from what his career stats look like.  News flash: Lampe can flat out hit, although Fox was still in CF.

For Columbus, Palacios still looks solid in the leadoff and Pries and Noel showed flashes of why we like them...again.  Rocchio is Rocchio and Collins is a AAAA hitting machine.  Logan Allen solid again hitting 94 on the gun at times.  As it gets warmer if he can jack that up to 95-96 he might be something special come August.  The AAAA bullpen guys did their job and the Clippers scored 8 late to win the game.

Looking forward to concurrent minor league baseball on mlb.tv starting in a couple of minutes.