Florida State College 1, Detroit Tigers 13
It was a beautiful sunny day in West Michigan today, but there are at least 6" of snow on the ground and nobody could play baseball here. But, in Florida they can and today- for the first time since Game #163- the Tigers played together against another team. And they won! Perhaps you believe that a MLB team should beat a Division II college team (and you'd be right) but it wasn't that long ago that no one could guarantee that.
I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence, but I feel I have to say this: this is only Spring Training (and this game wasn't even THAT- it was a scrimmage) so we can't read much into what happened today. But OMG- they played baseball today!
Phil Coke started things out (and his role as starter or reliever is one of the questions this spring). He pitched 2 innings with 0 runs and only 1 hit and 1 walk against 3 strike outs. A nice solid outing. No matter what his job is during the season, I hope we see a LOT more of this from Coke.
Eddie Bonine came in and also pitched 2 innings of 0 runs, 1 hit, 0 walks, and 1 K.
Someone wearing 62 also pitched 2 innings with 0 runs, 2 hits, 0 walks and 2 Ks.
Joel Zumaya came on in the 7th and seemed to bring back the scary Joel. 1 hit, 1 walk and one HBP loaded the bases. But he worked way out of it with 2 strike outs and a fly out with 0 runs allowed.
Fu-Te Ni pitched the 8th and was perfect.
#70 finished it off in the 9th allowing 1 run on 3 hits but did have 2 Ks and a fly out.
Offensively it looks like it was noobs that scored the runs. Ryan Striebly scored 3 runs, Brennan Boesch scored 2, Casper Wells scored 1, as did Jeff Larish, Brent Dlugach and Don Kelly. Some of the regulars crossed the plate also (Ordonez scored 1, Cabrera scored 1, Thomas scored 2).
Guillen knocked in 2, as did #75 (whoever that was).
Overall it was an impressive day for the Tigers! We now know that they can beat up on smallish college opponents. BTW Al Kaline's grandson Colin Kaline, had 2 hits for the FSC Moccasins. The only downside was that Boesch played a fly ball off of his face and needed stitches as a result.
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
(thanks to Lee Panas for posting Ernie Harwell's classic)
