Woo-hoo! Televisied Diamondbacks! Haven't seen this since... Well, technically, I suppose last night, when I was watching the Classic Diamondbacks game on Fox Sports Arizona - Sept 5, 2001, with Curt Schilling beating the Giants and... Russ Ortiz. You'll understand why I had to turn that one off pretty quick. But anyway, make it televised 2010 Diamondbacks, and we are so there. The blackout has been lifted in the local television market for MLB Network's simulcast of the game at Camelback Ranch against the Dodgers, with first pitch at 1:05 pm, so you've got no excuse for not watching it. Except for this accursed wage-slavery thing, which means I'll have to Tivo it. So no spoilers in the comments, please. :-)
Let's just hope it's decent weather. The forecast is good with an expected high of 62 degrees and sun, which will be a good bit better than it has been. Line-ups and other stuff after the jump.
- Abreu SS
- Parra CF
- Jackson LF
- Reynolds 3B
- Montero C
- Snyder DH
- Macias RF
- Ryal 1B
- Ojeda 2B
- Haren P (not batting)
Ok, I lied about the line-ups, as I haven't seen them published anywhere yet. If any editor sees them in the usual places e.g. Nick's blog, please feel free to update the post, as I am probably not going to be around to do so in a timely manner. Not certain who'll be commentating - presumably it isn't the usual Grace/Sutton pairing, since the game is not on Fox Sports AZ. MLB Network will carry Fox Sports Prime's call of the game (they're the posH version of Fox Sports West), and I don't know who does their play-by-play. I feel somewhat hard done by, after discovering that of the Dodgers' 31 spring games, no less than twenty are televised, which makes the mere half-dozen we see of the D-backs, somewhat small beer. [Mmm... Beer...]
Couple of news snippets. Steve Gilbert says Billy Buckner apprears intensely focused on making the rotation. AJ Hinch says, "You can just tell by the way he's going about his work. He's into the competition. I can see the focus. I can see it matters to him. He's competing and he's not taking anything for granted." Buckner even paid for his own hotel room in Phoenix on Monday night, so he could focus on his start against the Reds. His good September starts seem to have been a help. Said Buckner, "No matter what your job is or what you do, whenever you start to do well at it and get praise from others around you about it, you start to feel better about yourself. And it just builds and builds, and you start to expect more from yourself, and you put more into it - and you have more fun with it."
Is Brandon Allen fixed? Nick Piecoro thinks he could be: "Everyone from opposing scouts to team executives have commented on Allen's impressive batting practice sessions, which have translated into success in games." The reason is because Allen has gone back to being more upright in his stance, as he was in Double-A . It's a change suggested by hittng coach Jack Howell: "It's not really rocket science, but I just saw some video and asked him to try going back to who he was before we got him, That's typical of a lot of young hitters, especially when you move around a little bit and then go to a different club. You try some different things and you kind of forget who you are."