Pages

Chachi Checklists

Season Summaries

Virtual Wall Archive

Vintage Phillies Team Sets

Friday, March 8, 2013

2013 Topps Turkey Red #89 Cliff Lee

Twins 10, Phillies 6
Spring Training Game 13 - Thursday Afternoon, March 7th in Clearwater
Record - 6-6-1

One Sentence Summary:  The Twins came from behind and roughed up the bullpen in a 10-6 victory over the Phillies.

What It Means:  One of the big things that concerns me at this point in the spring is that two of the guys the Phillies were relying on within their new and improved bullpen - leftys Jeremy Horst and Raul Valdes - have struggled mightily.  Horst owns a 14.40 ERA while Valdes' ERA is slightly more respectable at  7.36.

What Went Wrong:  After three innings, the Phils led by a score of 6-1, but the bullpen coughed up the lead and the game.  Darin Ruf had his first decent outing of the spring, going 2 for 4 with three RBIs.  Twins center fielder Aaron Hicks exploded with three home runs and six RBIs.

Cliff Lee pitched 3 2/3 innings and allowed two runs on four hits while striking out five.  Both of the runs he allowed came via the long ball.

Featured Card:  Before I dive head first into a Topps Heritage lovefest, I wanted to at least mention the other Topps set recently released.  Topps Turkey Red is a 100-card set released exclusively online through the Topps website.  Each 11-card box contained 10 cards plus one autographed card for $20.  I had absolutely no desire to purchase a box of these cards from Topps, but I'll be more than happy to pay a few bucks (or less) each for the seven Phillies cards included within the set.

The set is reminiscent of past Topps Turkey Red releases, and the Phillies cards feature all posed shots taken last year in Clearwater.

No comments:

Post a Comment