It is finally baseball season! How do I know? I saw the Beer Alien today. If you have ever attended a Rockies game at Coors Field and sat in the left field stands you most certainly have seen the Beer Alien before. He has his own business cards he hands out with his cell phone number so when you need another cold frosty you can give him a hollar and he will come running.
It isn’t baseball season until the Alien is spotted (in the green to the right and I apologize for the picture quality as my phone doesn’t do so well when I zoom).
Today the Rockies faced the White Sox and after slowly moving through the Rockies practice fields my wife and I hit the big league park for some action.
I did come to a sad realization as I was watching the minor leaguers practice today: there really aren’t any prospects I am geeked to see live in the Rockies organization right now. Maybe Rosell Herrera? And if I even did have an idea of someone who I would like to watch I would need to now only know their number (I saw two players wearing number 84 standing next to each other on one field) I would probably actually need to know what they look like. Most of these guys I know only by their profile page on baseball-reference.
Today’s Rockies lineup was the Golden Girls version: Todd Helton, Jason Giambi, Ramon Hernandez, Jamie Moyer, Marco Scutaro and Casey Blake were all in the starting lineup. I tweeted this around the second inning:
When I saw the 3 ambulances and fire truck in front of Salt River I should have known Moyer was pitching
I will say this, though, Moyer did fly through his innings of work with very few base runners. I don’t know his exact line but he couldn’t have allowed more than two runners today. He even struck out Alex Rios. What’s that? Oh, ya, Rios does suck…doesn’t he? I actually think Moyer struck out two White Sox batters in that same inning, his final inning, which I think was the third. Now let’s see how well I was paying attention ***checking box score*** wow…I missed an entire run he gave up and apparently those two K’s were his only strikeouts.
I don’t pay much attention to the score during Spring Training games, obviously, I tend to notice Vinny Castilla coaching first base more than who wins.
I also noticed that I had never heard of Andrew Brown who started in left field for the Rockies. Apparently the Rockies claimed him off of waivers in October.
My wife and I also watched Addison Reed (I only know his first name because I just looked him up) warm up in the White Sox bullpen. I know you are dying to know what I noticed! I noticed that he seemed really cocky and his hand looked really, really large and swollen. Apparently it always looks like that (his throwing hand)? Maybe a skin graft? I believe he allowed the first Rockie to reach via his own error, walked the second Rockie, passed ball to move up the runners and then a very shallow sac-fly from Eric Young Jr. to score a run. Meanwhile he still portrayed an air of arrogance while walking around the mound.
Speaking of EY2, why do the Rockies want to force him into the outfield? I could understand if he had a decent bat but what does EY2 bring to the team? Speed. That’s it. Of the five classic tools he cannot hit for power, cannot hit for average, cannot field and cannot throw and all he can do is run. Trying to force him into the lineup just for speed is a complete waste of time.
Ah, but this is Spring Training and Salt River has the decency to sell bombers of quality beer! Namely Fat Tire and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Sure they charge $11 for one of them but while I do like beer I don’t drink crap like Coors Light or Budweiser. I had the Sierra Nevada and my only complaint is that they didn’t let me keep the bottle to add to my relatively modest collection.
After finishing my beer and wandering around the park I got to see Guillermo Moscoso live for the first time. Not impressed. The first batter he faced smoked him to deep center and fortunately it held up long enough to be caught. But make no mistake, it was good wood…solid spank. He was saved twice I believe by Ramon Hernandez throwing out base runners and I think I saw a tweet by Patrick Saunders stating that Hernandez is now 4-for-4 or 5-for-5 in throwing out runners so far this spring.
And finally here are two more of my tweets while at the game today, one each for the double-play combo of the Rockies.
Tulo grounds into a DP and yells the F word loud enough that they herd him on the practice fields
The slow heart beat just missed his throw by 10 feet from 20 feet away
Beautiful
Yes, I know “heard” is spelled wrong in the Tulo tweet…auto correct got me. And that throw from Scutaro was brutal but he did continue to get on-base today and had a great hustle double. He might win me over before this season is over.
No matter how ugly you think the desert is you will fall in love with Salt River fields. The place is beautiful. The natural landscaping is gorgeous and it really is better than some major league parks.
We are headed to Surprise tomorrow for the Royals and Giants followed by Rockies games the rest of the week (get to see the Dodgers facility on Tuesday, excited to see it).
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