by Frobby
1. I was sitting down the LF line and Aneury Tavarez was playing LF. He dropped a foul fly about 10 feet from where we were sitting. He had to run a long way, but he got there just by the railing and the ball clanked off his glove. Later, he did a nice job charging a line single and made a pretty good throw to the plate, but the runner beat it pretty easily. At the plate, he looked overmatched his first two at bats, but then walked, had an uncontested steal of 2B (Phils pitched out but catcher dropped the ball) and easily scored on a single.
2. Flash made a great play at 3B, diving stop to his backhand side and throwing from his knees for the out.
3. Mancini played RF. Very first play of the game was a ground double down the line that he played cleanly. Later there was a line drive off the wall where he hit the cutoff man who relayed it to 2B but too late to get the runner. Later he fielded a ground single and hit the cutoff man playing inside the skin of the infield on a short hop. Overall my impression was his arm is pretty accurate but not that strong. He didn’t have a chance to get any balls on the fly. At bat, he got badly fooled on a few offspeed pitches, but also smacked a hard-hit single to left.
4. Giovatella had a diving stop of a grounder in the 1B hole. He also bobbled a DP grounder but got the ball to Hardy who made a lightning fast pivot and still turned the DP.
5. Hardy did not seem hobbled at all. He scored from 2B on a single and looked like his usual slow self doing it.
6. In the first inning, the Phils scored from 3B on a grounder when Caleb dropped the relay throw. I didn’t have a great view, but the throw looked good to me. The play at the plate was close before Caleb dropped it.
7. The O’s hit two homers. Caleb’s was blasted, Rickard’s was more of a liner that the wind carried over the fence.
8. Logan Schafer did a nice job tracking down two balls over his head.
9. Mullins, who took over in LF for Tavarez had a hard time tracking a high fly off Liranzo. He went to the wall too far towards CF, then at the last second had to run 2-3 strides towards the LF corner, jumped and the ball just got over his glove. If he’d been in the right spot maybe he could have nabbed it, but I’m not sure.
10. First hit of the game was a grounder down the line that Trumbo couldn’t reach. I couldn’t tell from my angle whether a quicker 1B might have made the play.
11. Gausman struggled with his command today, repeatedly pitching behind in the count. He got three strikeouts, all on change-ups.
12. Brach was totally dominant in his inning of work, striking out all three batters he faced and looking great doing it.
13. Verrett was hit pretty hard in his first inning, looked better in his second.
Overall, I had a great time but look forward to having a better view the next two times.
