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8:10 PM Eastern

I was originally going to title this post “AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz” in honour of all the amazingly cheezy ’80s music I got to listen to on the way down to, on the way back from and at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers. It was a veritable treasure trove of great tunes, though it wasn’t quite a no-repeat Sunday. I heard “Who Can It Be Now” in both the first and last five minutes of my 11 1/2 hour day, but the standout has to be Jenny/867-5309.  I don’t know what it is about that song, maybe (hopefully) it’s the beat, because I’m really hoping it’s not the subject matter, but I love it.

Stunningly, not a single member of the Blue Jays traveling media circus made the trip, excluding your intrepid reporter and the rest of the radio crew, and really, they didn’t miss much. Nobody got hurt (except for Carlos Gomez, who crashed into the wall making a great catch on a Matt Watson fly ball that wound up scoring Marco Scutaro from second - he was just winded), and Dustin McGowan was just OK. He was a lot happier with his performance than I thought he’d be, actually. I thought he struggled to throw strikes - actually I didn’t think that, it’s true, he threw 70 pitches and only 38 were strikes - and he seemed to be frustrated by some pitches and some calls and had a couple of very long innings. Afterwards, though, he said he thought he did pretty well, but that he still needs to work on command of his breaking pitches. He used the slide step with some success, as only Gomez stole a base (with catcher Brian Jeroloman’s throw sailing into centre field), but Johnny Bench or Ivan Rodriguez in his prime would have a hard time throwing out Gomez, even with Jimmy Key on the mound. The guy is fast.

How about John McDonald? 3-for-3 with a walk, with all three hits coming against round moundsman Livan Hernandez. Johnny Mac has rededicated himself to strike-zone discipline, and he raised his spring average to .286 with his big day. He did a great job taking pitches that were off the plate and getting himself into good hitters’ counts.  One can only hope he can keep it going. The Jays would have more options if McDonald was actually a threat at the plate.

Jeroloman had a big day, too, with two singles, a double and a walk. He also showed a quick release and a strong arm behind the plate. J.P. Ricciardi says he’s the best defensively of the four prospect catchers (Thigpen, Diaz and Arencibia being the others), and his plate discipline is off the charts. Last year at Dunedin, he walked 85 times with only 57 strikeouts, and for his two years in the pros, his “isolated on-base” (obp minus batting average - dig me, I made up a new stat!) is .151, which is just sick. He’ll be at New Hampshire this year, and he’s worth keeping an eye on.

Finally, I got to chat with Justin Morneau for the pre-game show, and he remains a delight to talk to. He’s really, really excited about next year’s World Baseball Classic, telling Ernie Whitt that he’s already trying to recruit guys who didn’t go in 2006 like Ryan Dempster and Russell Martin (both of whom should be locks to go), and planning on a return to health of Rich Harden. Team Canada should be able to pitch, with Harden, Jeff Francis, Erik Bedard and Adam Loewen in the rotation. Hopefully, Stubby Clapp can hang on one more year to play second! Morneau also suggested to Larry Walker that he come out of retirement and DH for Team Canada at the Olympics in Beijing.

He said the best thing about today’s game was that he got to hear two anthems. Morneau is everything that I wish Simon Pond had been, personality-wise. The two of them are good friends, which is strange, because Pond is as effusive as a can of soup.

Tomorrow - Bradenton! And back to the live blogging. A.J. Burnett is scheduled to throw five innings, just with his sinker and change-up, and the “A” team should be making the trip, though I didn’t get a look at the bus schedule. Some of the slackers who didn’t spend 5 1/2 hours driving back and forth to Fort Myers probably did.

Comments, as always, are encouraged, and I’ll try to reply briefly if I can.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.