Sweet Sounds Of Spring!

Hello again everyone from southeast Michigan! Can someone please tell me this: if it’s spring, why is it 8 degrees outside this morning? Sheesh!!

As I browsed the ‘net Friday and yesterday, I ran across some pretty neat Braves stuff. Then I watched yesterday’s game and ran across some not-so-neat Braves stuff. At least the sound was lost on the MLB.TV feed here in Michigan for most of the time that they had Frank Wren in the booth, as most of what I did hear from him was standard team P.R. Anyway, here are some of the “sounds of Spring” that caught my eye (or should I say ear? No, I read most of this, so it must be my eye. Unless it was what I heard during the game. Oh well, you know what I mean 🙂 ):

* You could almost see the puzzlement in his eyes when reading the quotes from Tigers manager Jim Leyland when he was describing the pitching of Brandon Beachy. He almost said “if they have four pitchers better than him, I’ll eat my hat”. Instead, he said “if they have four guys better than that, they have a hell of a rotation”. Read more about Beachy’s last outing here on MLB.com.

* Speaking of puzzlement in someone’s eyes, that someone would be me watching the Braves play Keystone Cops in the field yesterday. Five errors! Man, that was brutal. The team now has 32 in 31 games this Spring, eclipsing even the horrid pace of last season’s team (which committed 126). If you’re interested in hearing Fredi downplay the significance of the errors all Spring, take a “listen” (there goes that eyes versus ears thing again!) to Fredi’s quotes in this David O’Brien article.

* Watching the Braves play yesterday, it made me wonder if defense will make any difference in deciding the last roster spots. If it does, Hicks should win the last spot, hands down. Conrad was brutal at both third base and, to a lesser degree, first base yesterday. And Wilkin Ramirez missed third base by about thirty feet on a throw yesterday, then followed that up by letting a ball go under his glove and roll all the way to the wall. Owww!!! If you’re not familiar with Hicks’ fielding, you might want to take a look at this AJC.com piece.

Well, I think that’s enough for now; who knows, I just might have saved a little for a follow-up piece!