Padres Spring Training Report – Mar. 14, 2015

With the great Padres left hander, Randy Jones, sitting in the radio booth with me today, how could the game not be the fastest one of the spring? In keeping with the legendary lefty’s reputation for posting zeros and working fast the Friar hurlers emulated him perfectly shutting out the Rangers in 2 hours 24 minutes leading the way for the Pads 2-0 victory.

Along with getting to talk ball with Randy for 9 innings, the other highlights of today’s ball game included…

• Andrew Cashner – Dealing with the illness of his mother, and traveling back and forth from AZ to TX to see her in between starts this spring, it would be easy to understand if Cash did not seem 100% focused on his work on the mound this spring. That, however, has most certainly not been the case  for the fireballing Texan, as he has been dominating in his last two spring efforts. Today it was a solid 4 innings of scoreless work that he posted, allowing 2 hits and nothing else.  He faced only one above the minimum, and threw first pitch strikes 9 times using his 2 seam fastball, change up, and slider all effectively.
• Lane, Guerrero, Benoit, Torres, and Thayer – These Padres relievers combined to toss 5 more scoreless innings after Cash’s 4, allowing only 1 hit between them. Solid!
• Abraham Almonte – His leadoff double to start the 8th lead to the game winning run.
• Ramiro Pena & Wil Nieves – Each had good at bats in the 8th to drive in runs. Pena a hard hit ball up the middle with the bases loaded, and Nieves a sac fly.  Appears that the situational work the Kotsay has been having the guys do durign morning practices is paying off.
• Wil Myers – Nice running catch in the gap to show off his speed.  He’s been showing off his tools more and more as spring has gone on.

In addition to this game the Padres also played a B game earlier in the morning, also against the Rangers, and also coming out victorious.  I watched as much of this game as I could, and did get to see Quentin make a couple of plays over at first base, and does seem able to hold his own over there so far.  The talk of the game though was Hunter Renfroe’s HR that was supposedly hit so hard that it’s still orbiting the planet.

Tomorrow the Pads travel to Goodyear to take on the Indians.  Game time is 1:05, and Jesse Agler and I will have the call on The Mighty 1090 AM. Hope you’ll join us!

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