Spring Training - Game 14 - at Phillies

[Parker Hageman]

No TV, no radio for today's game. (UPDATE: You can access the Phillies broadcast on the intertubes.) Wheee!

Need starting lineups? Joe C has you covered like a jimmy hat:

TWINS (6-6)
1. Denard Span, CF
2. Tsuyoshi Nishioka, SS
3. Josh Willingham, RF
4. Justin Morneau, DH
5. Chris Parmelee, 1B
6. Ryan Doumit, C
7. Sean Burroughs, 3B
8. Ben Revere, LF
9. Alexi Casilla, 2B
Pitching: Jason Marquis, Casey Fien, Jeff Manship, Esmerling Vasquez, Luis Perdomo, Jeff Gray, Aaron Thompson, Lester Oliveros, Sam Deduno.
PHILLIES (6-1)
1. Jimmy Rollins, SS
2. Placido Polanco, 3B
3. Shane Victorinio, CF
4. Hunter Pence, RF
5. Ty Wigginton, 1B
6. John Mayberry Jr., LF
7. Domonic Brown, DH
8. Carlos Ruiz, C
9. Freddy Galvis, 2B
Pitching: Roy Halladay, Dontrelle Willis, Jonathan Papelbon, Michael Stutes.

Denard Span and Tsuyoshi Nishioka will return to the lineup today. Their reward? They get to face Roy Halladay. Oh boy!

[thrylos98]

No TV, no radio for today's game. Twitter updates only! Wheee!

That may be the case in Minnesota, but in the Philies will be broadcasting the game both on TV and radio (and will be on MLB.TV)

[Parker Hageman]

The PiPress's Ben Goessling has a few notes on today's game including whether or not we should expect Josh Willingham to hit third during the regular season. According to Ron Gardenhire, no, we should not:

Josh Willingham hits third today, but Ron Gardenhire said he’s not necessarily looking to put Willingham in front of Justin Morneau once the regular season starts. He’s not worried about splitting up Joe Mauer and Morneau – “We’ve won a lot of ballgames with them going back-to-back,” he said – and the alignment today is mostly to get Willingham an extra at-bat.

[John Bonnes]

ON the one hand, I want to turn down my MLB.TV, because I'm pretty sure the Phillies TV announcers are going to bet talking Phils about 90% of the time. But on the other, I kinda miss their coverage. We'll see how this goes.

[John Bonnes]

Chooch throws out Span by a mile trying to steal second. I'm still happy to see Denard run w a little abandon this spring. Chooch has a pretty good defensive rep.

[John Bonnes]

Willingham hits a bullet home run to right field. The only question about that one was whether it would begin it's descent before or after it reached the wall.

[John Bonnes]

Phils announcers doing a lot of talking about the Twins, at least early. Wheeler is doing OK with background.

[Twins Fan From Afar]

Willingham hits a bullet home run to right field. The only question about that one was whether it would begin it's descent before or after it reached the wall.

Good start!

[Jim Crikket]

What the hell is he doing hitting the ball to right field? Doesn't he know he was brought in to PULL the ball? What a bum! #sarcasm

[Parker Hageman]

@John -- GameDay says it was to LEFT FIELD. Considering his pull heavy tendencies, I'm guessing it went out to left and not right field.

[Parker Hageman]

Another thing we should be talking about this spring is that, when on the field, Denard Span has been tearing the cover off the ball.

[John Bonnes]

Sorry, I mispoke. It was to left field. He pulled a couple of foul balls and then got a hold of one, might have been a changeup.

[thrylos98]

That last run the ball got in an out of Burroughs' glove. Not much solid D from his so far this Spring. Marquis is continuously pitching pretty bad.

[John Bonnes]

Marquis 2nd inning isn't going to look that good, but infield D is hurting him again.
- 1st hit was a ground ball to Casilla's left. He had to range, dove, but overdove and the ball went off his wrist and into right field.
- 2nd hit was a hard hit ground ball to Burroughs (at 3B) right. It would've been a good play, had he made it, but he did not. Odd that would happen with a runner on 3rd base.
- 2nd run scored when Twins failed to turn a DP. It was a high bouncer to Casilla and to be fair I don't know of many IFs that could have turned it.

So a mixture of bad luck and very average fielding.

[John Bonnes]

INteresting to me that Casilla is batting 9th, behind Revere batting 8th and with Nishi batting 2nd. WT?

[John Bonnes]

Nishi's year continues - he just hit a line drive off his own knee. They're taking a look at him. Maybe that's why Gardenhire batted him 2nd - more chances for injury.

[John Bonnes]

Oh, and then he struck out.

[Twins Fan From Afar]

Oh, and then he struck out.

Not that it's funny, but I did just chuckle a bit.

[John Bonnes]

Willingham strikes again. Opposite field ground gets through the right side of the infield (kinda looked like he got sawed off) and Casilla scores from second ahead of the throw.

[Jim Crikket]

GameDay just showed injury delay... was afraid it was Casilla or Span. Relieved it was "just" Nishi.