Spring Training Game 4 - Tuesday Afternoon, March 6th in Dunedin
Record - 2-2
One Sentence Summary: Cliff Lee, Kyle Kendrick and five other pitchers combined to shutout the Blue Jays in Dunedin, 7-0.
What It Means: It's only the fourth game of the spring, but this was the strongest performance by the pitching staff so far.
What Went Right: Lee and Kendrick both pitched two shutout innings. I listened to the ninth inning at work and announcer Larry Andersen was very impressed with Jake Diekman's stuff. (Diekman, a lefty, was the last of seven Phillies pitchers used.)
Carlos Ruiz went 2-for-2 in his spring debut and Shane Victorino contributed two RBIs.
Featured Card: By the time Finest was released last year (in early October), I didn't have any good reasons to post any of the Phillies cards from the set. I actually like the 2011 Finest design, although admittedly Topps isn't breaking any new ground with this set. I did find it strange last year that Topps pushed the release of this set into the fall, as traditionally Finest has been a spring release. Looking at the card release calendar over at the BaseballCardPedia for 2012, it appears as if Topps plans to release its 2012 Finest set in August this year. So instead of a spring Finest release, we'll have to make due with Topps Opening Day (which appears to already be live on eBay) and Topps Tribute. And of course, 2012 Topps Heritage is right around the corner too. To collect Topps Heritage or to not collect Topps Heritage? That is the question.
Collect Topps Heritage
ReplyDeleteIt's the short prints that hold me back. Otherwise Iwoukd have pre-ordered a few boxes by now.
ReplyDelete