Live Blog: Phils’ Spring Opener, BYU-San Diego State

Every winter, baseball fans keep their eyes on the calendar, looking toward the date that pitchers and catchers report for the start of spring training.  Once that day comes, though, it’s anti-climactic.  It’s not until the spring training games get started a couple of weeks later that you can feel the baseball season and the spring and (if you really concentrate) summer on the horizon.  That day is today, as the Phillies play their first game of the first season in a generation that they enter as the favorites to win the World Series. 

The game (against the Yankees) starts at 1 PM on MLB Network, and an hour later the re-match of BYU-San Diego St. airs on CBS, giving us a rare glimpse at the two Mountain West powers.  So, this seemed like a good time for our first live blog in a good while.

Cole Hamels gets the start for the Phils, and he’s actually been the talk of the team’s camp in the early going, with observers claiming that he’s picked up right where he left off from his dominant second-half of 2010.  We’ll get our first chance to judge for ourselves today.

Charlie’s line-up for today: 

1) Jimmy Rollins, SS
2) Ross Gload, DH
3) Raul Ibanez, LF
4) Ryan Howard, 1B
5) Ben Francisco, CF
6) Domonic Brown, RF
7) Jeff Larish, 3B
8 ) Brian Schneider, C
9) Wilson Valdez, 2B

The most notable thing about the line-up is the absence of Chase Utley because of “soreness” from working out too hard, apparently.  He also missed Thursday’s exhibition against Florida St., so there’s a tiny bit of reason to be concerned that he’s missing this game today, but not really.  It seems like there’s always those concerns that Utley is hiding an injury, but let’s not create something to worry about.

Jeff Larish is the lone odd name in the line-up.  He’s a 28-year-old who had cups of coffee with the Tigers and A’s in each of the last three years, hitting a combined .224 with 8 home runs in 245 at-bats.  Those numbers, combined with the fact that he bats left-handed, suggest to me that he has very little shot at making the major league roster.

I’ll be back later on for the start of the game….

1: 05 PM:  Alright, the game is about to get  underway.  It’s a beautiful, sunny day in Tampa and a beautiful, sunny day here on Long Island, so I’ll just pretend that the temperatures are the same, as well.  I’ll be watching the game on the Yankees YES Network, which is a little unfortunate, of course, but oh well.

1:13 PM:  Unfortunately, the start of the game is being delayed so the Yankees can honor George Steinbrenner and keep up this charade of acting like he was some great human when, in fact, he was just some jerk that was successful in business and bought the Yankees and continued to be a jerk for the next 40 years before he died last year.  What a hero.

1:25 PM:  Slight change to the Phils’ lineup, as J-Roll is out and Pete Orr will lead-off and play second, with Valdez moving over to short.  The line-up will face former Cy Young winner Bartolo Colon, who is actually not as fat as I would’ve thought, but is still fairly ginormous.  Michael Kay reports that Colon would like to lose 25 pounds before the start of the season.  Ha!

1:35 PM:  It looked like Howard didn’t hit that ball well at all but he still just missed putting it over the left-field wall, as Brett Gardner makes a leaping catch to end the top of the 1st.  Not sure how far it is out there, but still nice to see the big guy going the other way with some power right out of the gate.  The Yanks are going with basically their normal starting nine.

1:42 PM:  It’s funny watching these early spring games.  Cole blew away Swisher with a high fastball, then I look at the radar reading and it was 87 MPH.  Cole doesn’t have his normal fastball yet, but the batters don’t have their normal bat speed either.  It’s a bit of a slowed down game at this point.  Though Cole did hit 89 later in the inning, which seems really nice to me for late-February.

1:51 PM:  One of the main things to watch this spring, of course, is the “battle” for right field between Francisco and Dom Brown.  Francisco rips a single in his first AB and goes to third on a Swisher error, and Brown follows up with a walk.  Worth keeping an eye on these guys in the field this spring too, because the Phils want to make sure that Francisco can handle backup CF duties, and they also want to see some improvement from Brown as far as reading the ball off the bat.

1:59 PM:  Cole gives up an RBI double on a liner down the third base line.  Polanco would’ve at least kept that ball in the infield but this Larish guy, not so much.  I’m going to turn my main attention to the big BYU-SDSU game now and check back in on the Phils.

2:19 PM:  I’ve hardly seen San Diego State, so I’m interested to see what they bring here against BYU.  They seem a little too amped up here at the start.  A very nice move by Kawhi Leonard at the start though, taking the ball into the free throw line and hitting a jump shot.

2:28 PM:  These are two great teams, but its still just the Jimmer and Kawhi show in some ways.  Jimmer hits one of his patented 40-foot 3’s to put BYU up 15-8.  He can just about nail down the National Player of the Year award with a big game here today.  Meanwhile, Leonard has already shown his size, athleticism, elite rebounding ability, mid-range jump shot, and even the ability to push the ball up the court and distribute.  He looks every bit like an NBA lottery pick.  When he gets in the lane, he just looks like he’s another level than the defenders, he’s not in a hurry, just seems to have the confidence in his ability to do what he wants.  Very impressed.

2:36 PM:  BYU continues to control the tempo.  They want to get up and down the court and get a lot of shots in the air and SDSU has to slow them down.  Jimmer has three 3’s now and their power forward, Noah Hartsock, has hit a couple as well.  Just a brutal team to defend.  SDSU, though, is showing that they can knock down perimeter shots as well, even though they’re more known for the frontcourt.

2:56 PM:  So, the question with guys like Fredette (big time scorers that lack the normal NBA profile and play at a small school, a la Stephen Curry) is, what will he be in the NBA?  Where should he be drafted?  To me, Fredette is a step above J.J. Redick, who is averaging 10 points for a good Orlando team this year.  They’re very similar college players, but Fredette is just a bit more adept with his cross-over dribble and ability to draw fouls, though I’m not sure how successful he’ll be with that in the NBA.  He also is a better passer than Redick was in college, which will certainly help.  Either way, he won’t be able to guard anybody at all in the NBA, which will likely keep him from being a starter, but you never know.

2:58 PM:  SDSU closes the half with a run to cut the lead to 3.  Should be a great second half.  Back to the Phils for half time.

3:14 PM:  Alright, the second half ready to get underway.  SDSU got the clamps on Fredette to a certain extent in the last 10 minutes of the half.  Can they keep him contained and complete the comeback to win this game?  Let’s see if Jimmer can nail down the top player award.

3:25 PM:  It’s not often you have two teams this good in a mid-major conference and its made for a really good rivalry this year, and there could very well be a third matchup in the conference championship game.  Too bad it will end this year, though, with BYU headed to the WCC next year.  They could very well strike up new rivalries with Gonzaga and St. Mary’s, though.

3:33 PM:  BYU big man Davies picks up his 4th foul with 12 minutes left.  With all the talented big men for the Aztecs, that could be big.  But Jimmer picks up a nice bucket to go back up by 8.

3:44 PM:  Danger time for SDSU now, as they fall behind by 13 with 8 minutes left.  BYU is just too good from the perimeter.  They’re absolutely a team that could beat anyone in the country a lot of nights.  There’s a lot more to the team than their 3-point shooting, so when they have that going well (which they often do), they are near impossible to beat.  Like any team that relies on shooting a lot though, they’re potentially susceptible to an upset.

3:52 PM:  Fredette picks up his 4th foul and I’d sit him down for just a minute.  You’re up 8, Fredette’s not a good defender, and he was frustrated after that last foul call.  I’d sit him down and let him cool off, collect himself, and go back out there, but he’s staying in.  I guess you have that trust in your senior All-American.

4:00 PM:  With two outs and the bases loaded in the 8th, our old friend Dane Sardinha bloops a single to plate two and give the Phils a 5-4 lead.  Nice!

4:09 PM:  Well, it looks like BYU has established themselves as the class of the MWC and will have a solid shot at a #1 seed in the tournament.  Of course, as I mentioned above, SDSU will possibly get another shot at them in the MWC title game in a couple weeks and could still put themselves in line for a #1 seed if they win out.  Either way, both of these teams will be high seeds and tough outs in the tourney.  Jimmer finishes with 25 points and 9 assists.  Leonard picks up 17 points, 13 boards, 4 assists, and 3 steals.

4:20 PM:  St. John’s is about to knock off Villanova for yet another big win in a season that’s seen the resurrection of that program.  This will be their first win of note on the road though.  Nova has now lost to St. John’s at home and to Rutgers this year.  When you consider how many players Nova has from the New York City region (Stokes, Fisher, Pena, Cheek) it must be especially frustrating for them, but also maybe not all that surprising.  Presumably, a lot of these guys on Rutgers and St. John’s have been playing these New York guys on Nova since high school and AAU ball, so they’re probably not as intimidated against them as they might be against some other highly-ranked teams.