Just a quick post on a couple of ST results. The Phillies beat the Indians 6-4, with J.A. Happ pitching 2 innings giving up a hit and recording one K. Here’s the recap of yesterday’s opening loss to the Tigers.

The line on the prospects (c/o PhuturePhillies)

Michael Bourn: 1/2, 1 R
Fabio Castro: 3 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 2 K
Anderson Garcia: 1 IP, 3 R (0 ER), 1 BB, 1 K
Brian Sanches: 1 IP, 2 ER, 1 K

Gotta go shovel, wax the skis for tomorrow and then take the kids to the 67s game….

We are covered in a fresh blanket of snow but ah… I can smell the grass.

My calendar tells me that it is six and a half weeks until Opening Day here in Ottawa. Oh boy. This time of year, in seasons past, I would find myself scrounging around on-line and in the paper for any tidbit of information regarding what my Lynx were going to offer me once the gates opened. I often had to be a detective, a veritable Sherlock Holmes, scanning sports pages and attempting to decipher clues. I always approach April with a crazy kind of curiosity. What would the starting infield look like? Who are our big hitters? Who would our aces be, and, you know, always a stab in the dark, who is our closer? It used to be a lot of work.

My co-conspirator, the head honcho of this web log, the celebrated Mister K has done all the dirty work this year. The fact that he has posted every single day of the off-season amazes me. I mean, how much baseball is there to talk about in these dark doldrums of winter in Canada? As it turns out, quite a lot actually. The man does his homework. Good on ya, CK. This Ottawa Lynx Blog is a good resource, if I do say so meself…

So… Spring Training has started. I have started listening to and watching some of the games on my computer. I am watching Pirates games and hoping that Eddy Garabito steps up for at least a pinch hit (a tidbit: #64 - he got himself a hit today…. tagged out at a bang bang play at home…) I am keeping an eye out for last seasons boys. I read the Orioles box scores and check out how their invitees are making out. It is tricky to keep track of the team this year, what with the Lynx change in affiliation. I only know our future team via their performances at Scranton Wilkes-Barre last season, and mostly at home games in my park which was what? 6 or 8 contests? I remember names like Chris Coste, Dusty Wathan and Ron Calloway, but as for the rest of the squad, I might be lost. Good thing CK is here to tell us what is up and who is where. I write for this blog but am also a fan of it to boot.

This 2007 season will present me with a new learning curve. Learning names as well as jersey numbers of our players and trying to memorize both. It will take a home-stand or two to make marking it all down in my score book as smooth as it was last April. But that is pretty fun too, I guess. I had an interesting if complicated time of it when we switched from the Expos to the Orioles four seasons ago, asking myself: “Joey Hammond? Who is he? Darnell MacDonald? Steve Lomasney and Bill Pulsipher? I hope they work out. But hey, that Brian Roberts guy looks pretty good…”

I will do a better job of contributing to this web log once the season starts, once I am seated comfortably in section EE trying to juggle my camera, score-book and pop-corn. That is where the real fun begins. I am enjoying reading box-scores in the paper this week. Sports Illustrated has been increasing the inches of their baseball columns. This is good. It has been a long winter. We are happy to find baseball in the press again, early on in Spring Training or not. Sure, we are under fifteen centimeters of snow today but keeping an eye on Florida and Arizona, you get the feeling that the thaw will be along soon, where everything will be good again. Everything will be green again.

Just a quick post on a couple of ST results. The Phillies beat the Indians 6-4, with J.A. Happ pitching 2 innings giving up a hit and recording one K. Here’s the recap of yesterday’s opening loss to the Tigers.

The line on the prospects (c/o PhuturePhillies)

Michael Bourn: 1/2, 1 R
Fabio Castro: 3 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 2 K
Anderson Garcia: 1 IP, 3 R (0 ER), 1 BB, 1 K
Brian Sanches: 1 IP, 2 ER, 1 K

Gotta go shovel, wax the skis for tomorrow and then take the kids to the 67s game….

This will probably be the “one and only” today, for reasons entirely unrelated to the weather. I’ve always said that March is the cruelest month of all - one day it’s +10C and sunny, the next day -10C with a foot of snow. I gotta get outta here.

Today’s profile is of pitching prospect John Ennis. Digging around, I found this (brief) article detailing his first ML start with the Atlanta Braves (coincidentally, his opponents were the Phillies).

Fast-forwarding to 2007, John finds himself as one of Philadelphia’s non-roster invitees to Spring Training - more from the Lynx website:

“Ennis has spent the last three seasons in Detroit’s minor league system, splitting 2006 between triple-A Toledo and double-A Erie. He went 2-4 with 13 saves and a 2.71 ERA in 46 games. Ennis, 27, spent part of the 2002 season with the Braves (0-0, 4.50) and part of 2004 with the Tigers (0-0, 8.44 ERA).”

You can catch a brief glimpse of him in this myspace video which chronicles Toledo’s 2005 season (he’s wearing number 49).

2005 Toledo Mud Hens

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