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It was clearly a very sensible decision to move the World Baseball Classic game between Italy and Canada to Chase Field. They should have done something similar with the Diamondbacks game, as it was delayed, interrupted and finally erased entirely from the record books. The team originally planned to start Randall Delgado, but due to the weather, the team was given only 20 minutes notification of the new time, which was delayed by 40 minutes. It wasn't enough to get Delgado warmed up, so they send Brad Ziegler out to "start". He threw 30 pitches and allowed a run, tying the game at one - we had taken the lead on a solo homer by Aaron Hill, his first of spring.
Delgado pitched 1.2 innings, but after a 1-2-3 second inning (including a Trent Oeltjen sighting!), was in a jam, with the bases loaded and two outs in the third, when the game was called. It had been worse, as he had loaded them with no outs, on two hits and a walk, but recovered to strike out the next two batters faced. It was his best outing of spring, but it has to be said, the Angels had yanked just about all their regular players out of the line-up. As Jack Magruder noted, the shirt numbers of their starters totaled 406. The D-backs also pulled Jason Kubel, perhaps mindful of the injury he suffered at Wrigley Field just after the All-Star break last year, when he slipped on wet grass.
Didi Gregorius got the Diamondbacks other hit, with one out in the third, but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, so even in a game that didn't reach three innings, we still managed to cram in our daily TOOTBLAN. Tomorrow - weather permitting, and that's about a 50/50 chance from what I see in the forecast - it's back to Salt River Fields for an afternoon game against the White Sox. Brandon McCarthy will be the scheduled starter, but beyond that, it probably depends on whether Kirk Gibson opts to shuffle the pitching pack, given only Delgado and Ziegler got any action today.
The other entertainment of the evening will be Team USA taking on Mexico at Chase Field. It's a must-win game for Mexico, who find themselves in the same boat as Canada, both teams being 0-1 after losing to the upstart Italian roster. Here's the USA line-up:
- Jimmy Rollins, SS
- Brandon Phillips, 2B
- Ryan Braun, LF
- Joe Mauer, DH
- David Wright, 3B
- Eric Hosmer, 1B
- Giancarlo Stanton, RF
- Adam Jones, CF
- J.P. Arencibia, C
Should be a loud crowd at Chase, especially with an offer of $5 seats if you brought in today's spring training stub - the entire Cactus League program went the same way as our game. So, join us as we curl up in front of the fire (unless you don't have a fireplace, in which case the SnakePit accepts no responsibility, etc.) with a mug of cocoa and enjoy the game.