Mum’s the word
Posted by Carl on March 23, 2008
Yesterday over on the UCOB we played “guess the missing logo”. The fun and games continue here on the UOLB today - an Easter egg hunt of sorts this weekend. This one comes care of our friends in Reading - wanna play? Good. Let’s play “Find the missing city”!
Baseball’s hottest commodity Pitching. It is the hottest commodity in baseball. Like precious stones, good pitching is dazzling, hard to find, difficult to replace and if you’re faking it like cubic zirconium, you’re not going to get away with it for very long. Last year we split up our pitching preview into two sections – starters and relievers. Then we told you that Julio De La Cruz and Patrick Overholt were promising starter and reliever prospects, respectively. Then De La Cruz spent all of 2007 pitching out of the bullpen and Overholt became a starter. So this year we’ll lump everyone that pitches together and try to paint a decently accurate picture as we go along. We’re going to go through over two dozen names this year. Six of them were invited to big league spring training and at least six of the remaining arms have been there at some point in there careers. Again, this is not set in stone. The R-Phils are likely to start the season with 11 or 12 pitchers on the roster. In 2007, 28 pitchers made at least one appearance for the R-Phils. Fourteen of them made at least one start. Those figures do not include rehab assignments. Righty Jason Anderson came to the Phillies as a Minor League free agent last year and appeared in 37 games between Reading (14) and Triple-A (23). He’s a hard thrower that has appeared in 32 career Major League games for the Yankees (26) and Mets (6). In almost 400 career games he made 51 starts and boasts a 3.39 ERA in the Minors. He’s a candidate to pitch at Reading, Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia.
Righty Gary Knotts is a great story, a big league veteran and in big league camp. He was out of baseball in 2005-2006 due to injuries. His comeback in affiliated ball began in Reading last year. He showed he was healthy in three starts here, including a 9-inning one-hitter vs. Erie. He ended up in Triple-A and probably starts there this year. But we can’t rule him out to make the big league club or get caught up in numbers and pitch here again. Last year was a roller coaster ride for Zack Segovia. He made the big league club after a strong spring following a super 2006 in Reading and Clearwater. Once the big Phils got some arms back healthy, as expected, he was sent to Triple-A to continue his development. Things didn’t go well in Triple-A and he would up back in Reading. An offseason check up showed he needed surgery. He’s back and looking to prove he’s healthy and that last year’s struggles at Triple-A were a fluke due to the injury. We’re listing him here just to play it safe. This story was posted on February 28, 2008 |
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And it continues in their analysis of the catchers, infielders and outfielders. The part of me that isn’t completely irritated by this wonders why they went through such trouble to avoid mentioning “Ottawa“. Reading’s baseball following is pretty knowledgeable - it’s not like people would be confused with the new affiliation in Allentown. Have we become like the embarassing “ex” that no one wants to mention?
What is pretty clear though is that this isn’t a conspiracy theory on my part; every other city is mentioned - Clearwater, Lakewood, Philadelphia. Maybe it’s just a bit of revisionist history on Reading’s part - excise any mention of Ottawa from Phillies minor league history and maybe they can convince people it never happened.
I still don’t get why they went through the trouble. Or did I just miss it when our fair city was re-named “Triple-A, Ontario”?
Meh. Move on Carl.
