By Frobby
March 14 vs. Tampa
The defense was really uninspiring today.
1. Â Â In the first, Trey Mancini in RF looked very Trumboesque, getting tentative on a catchable liner and then letting the short-hop bounce off his glove, allowing the hitter to advance to 2B.
2. Â Â Chris Johnson made a nice diving stop and throw while Miley was in, and the ball took a wicked hop to his backhand side. Â Â Best play of the day.
3. Â Britton induced a chopper over the mound that looked playable for Andino, who didn’t pursue it and it was too far for Hardy to reach. Â The next hitter hit a soft chopper to a Johnson’s left that at first I thought was a DP ball, but Johnson chose to throw to first. Â Not sure it would have been a DP, but I’m pretty sure they could have cut down the lead runner. Â Later in the inning, a grounder deflected off Johnson’s glove for a single; a play Manny makes 4 times out of 5. Â Â Zach allowed two runs but the entire inning was ground balls and strikeouts.
4.   Aneury Tavarez came in to play LF and chased down a long fly in the gap but then couldn’t make the catch.
5. Â Â Logan Schafer came in to play CF and misjudged a line drive hit in front of him, got a late jump and had the ball tick off his glove trying to make a shoestring catch. Then he picked the ball up and threw a bullet to 1B and nearly nailed the runner as he rounded the bag.
6. Â Â Chris Dickerson badly misjudged a ball that sailed over his head in the RCF gap.
7. Â Â Joey Rickard, who started in LF, threw to 3B when he had no chance to get the runner and allowed the batter to advance to 2B.
8. Â Garabez Rosa, playing 3B late in the game, made a nice stop to his backhand side and then nearly threw away his throw to 2B, but Giovatella stabbed it on a hop to get the force.
Some other notes:
1. Â Â Rickard hit a HR that cleared the 366 foot marker in the LF gap by a wide margin. Â Dickerson hit one to dead center. Â Janish also hit a nice one to left.
2. Â Â Gentry stole 2B pretty easily, beating an accurate throw.
3. Â Â Hardy had an infield single, seemed to be moving freely.
4. Â Tavarez is very fast. Â Â He beat out a high chopper in the 1B hole, beat out a DP relay throw on a tailor-made DP grounder he hit, and made a force play at 2B very close.
5.  Santander had two line singles, one from each side of the plate   His stance from the LH side looks a bit like Eddie Murray’s.
6. Â Â Miley wasn’t very good, but his defense didn’t help him and he had a bloop hit fall in too.
7. Â O’Day allowed a couple of hits but got a key strikeout with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out, then got out of the inning.
8. Â Â Wilson looked bad today. Â Almost every ball was hit hard. Â There were a couple of hits that might have been caught, but they were smashed.










