In day 1 of my vacation in Florida, I had the pleasure of attending my first Spring Training game. It was an action filled game. It started off with entering a great facility in the Red Sox's brand new stadium, JetBlue II. It lived up to the hype given by former Cardinals beat writer Matthew Leach after his visit earlier this spring.
Now time for the action. The Cardinals Minor League Hitter of the Year, Matt Adams, put on a show during batting practice. Every ball he hit was a double into the gap. No joke. That guy can rake the ball. I'm starting to see that not signing Albert Pujols to a 10 year deal was a good idea. It would kinda blocked a future MVP candidate. Adams should be the Cards starting first baseman in 2013, assuming that Berkman retires after this season.
Pitching wise, Lohse threw a solid 3 innings. His box score lines will be misleading because of McDonalds's one swing that brought in two of the three runs that were scored that inning. J.C. Romero and Marc Rzepczynski both had rough outings. Jason Motte and Kyle McClellan both had their stuff working though.
Throughout the lineup, no one had a great offensive game, but with timely hitting they produced 9 runs. A third of those came Shane Robinson's pinch hit, bases loaded triple. The outfielders were playing pretty shallow, but that came back to haunt them as Robinson plugged one into center field. It hit off the base of the 375 feet sign on the mini Green Monster.
Earlier in the game, there was a 20 minute rain delay with Matt Adams at the plate. The count was 1-0 when it was called. After play resumed, the same pitcher came out and threw another ball. I had a feeling that Adams was going to put a charge into a pitch after the pitcher had been still for 20 minutes. On the next pitch, my intuition was proven correct as Adams cranked a solo homer to right field. The ball flew approximately 390 feet. It was a no-doubter right after the crack of the bat. Adams later had a RBI single on a sharp grounder past the first baseman.
The Cardinals played solid defense, turning two double plays. Outside of Freeman's three walks, they pitched solidly too. Their pinch hitters (Shane Robinson and Oscar Tavares) were 2-2 with 2 runs and 4 RBI's. They did the little things right and came out on top. The Red Sox, on the other hand, had plenty of blunders. Bard overthrew second on a pickoff attempt, former Redbird Nick Punto was in the way of Matt Carpenter during Komatsu's hit 'n run RBI double in the second inning, Youkilis and Punto both missed ground balls that could have been made but were scored as hits.
Long story short, I liked what I saw from the Cardinals today. Going to watch the Twins take on the Orioles tomorrow. On Saturday, we'll see the Twins again. To conclude the vacation, we're going to watch the Cardinals play the revamped Miami Marlins on Sunday. More coverage tomorrow.
