February 24, 2009/Tuesday
THE FIRST SPRING TRAINING GAMES ARE TOMORROW!!!
But before we get any farther, I would like to thank MLBlogs for putting me on the Latest Leaders list. It means a lot for me to finally be on the list!
Back to MLB. Tomorrow, the Red Sox will play Minnesota over at their complex in Fort Myers. According to Ian Browne, Wakefield will pitch tomorrow while the lineup will be
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Youkilis 1B
Bay LF
Wilkerson RF
Lowrie SS
Bailey DH
Bard C
Velazquez 3B
Should be a fun game to watch, especially since it's the first time we see most of the team together since that crushing defeat in Tampa. I know that this is a cliché thing to say, but all the players have learned from last year and we're now a better team.
The Twins meanwhile have also made some progress. Everyone in their starting rotation is under 30, and I expect that their best starter will be Francisco Liriano, as he can return to pre-injury form. They also added Joe Crede earlier this week, and he is definitely a good addition.
On another note, I was watching MLB Network today, and was watching something on a stat used to measure a player's ability, called PECOTA, which is an acronym for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. Using that, they were saying that Youk should hit around 130 RBI next year while maintaining a .290 average. All these stats are interesting for predicting the future in baseball.
So as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is the official start of a brand new season. For the first time this year, we'll see how the club comes together again and plays like a team, and can hopefully revive their World Series status of 2004 and 2007.
But before we get any farther, I would like to thank MLBlogs for putting me on the Latest Leaders list. It means a lot for me to finally be on the list!
Back to MLB. Tomorrow, the Red Sox will play Minnesota over at their complex in Fort Myers. According to Ian Browne, Wakefield will pitch tomorrow while the lineup will beEllsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Youkilis 1B
Bay LF
Wilkerson RF
Lowrie SS
Bailey DH
Bard C
Velazquez 3B
Should be a fun game to watch, especially since it's the first time we see most of the team together since that crushing defeat in Tampa. I know that this is a cliché thing to say, but all the players have learned from last year and we're now a better team.
The Twins meanwhile have also made some progress. Everyone in their starting rotation is under 30, and I expect that their best starter will be Francisco Liriano, as he can return to pre-injury form. They also added Joe Crede earlier this week, and he is definitely a good addition.
On another note, I was watching MLB Network today, and was watching something on a stat used to measure a player's ability, called PECOTA, which is an acronym for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. Using that, they were saying that Youk should hit around 130 RBI next year while maintaining a .290 average. All these stats are interesting for predicting the future in baseball.So as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is the official start of a brand new season. For the first time this year, we'll see how the club comes together again and plays like a team, and can hopefully revive their World Series status of 2004 and 2007.
FYI, you get on the leader's list based on the # of people who read your blog and the blogs that you visit. We've all been keeping our fearless leader busy! The lineup you have is for the second game. We have a split squad tomorrow and there is a game in the afternoon vs Boston College. The lineup for the first game is:
Lugo SS
Baldelli LF
Ortiz DH
Drew RF
Carter 1B
Kottaras C
Van Every CF
Green 2B
Chavez 3B
Following Beckett out of the 'pen will be Clay Buchholz, Kris Johnson, Junichi Tazawa, Felix Doubront and Daniel Bard.
Over the weekend the team will also play Northeastern University. It's a nice tradition we have with several of the Colleges & Universities from Boston.
Julia
http://werbiefitz.mlblogs.com/
Report any abuse or spam