At this advanced stage of the Grapefruit League schedule, the bulk of those reunions have already taken place. With the exception of Boston’s meeting with Toronto on March 25, which will bring Blue Jays manager and former Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell back to City of Palms Park, every opponent remaining on the schedule has already been seen this spring.
As the smiles and hugs wane and the regulars begin to get a few more innings at a time, the intensity slowly gets ratcheted up in anticipation for Opening Day. Let us step up the intensity as well as we look at nine items from the week that was in Fort Myers, your weekly offering of the Red Sox Lineup.
1. As of Wednesday, there were 49 players still in the major league camp, including 11 non-roster invitees. That should change relatively soon, perhaps this Saturday morning. One reason for that day above others is that the Grapefruit League schedule begins to ease up just a bit. The last of the team’s four split-squad days is Friday (home against Detroit, at Tampa Bay). There will be nothing but single-game afternoons and evenings the rest of the way, with the addition of the only scheduled day off of the entire month next Wednesday. That will allow the team to get by with fewer players, and it’s also about the time that the staff will begin to map out that 25-man roster and give guys the playing time they need to get ready.
2. On that note, we offer up the latest look at the remaining battles in the bullpen, which has become much more interesting than many may have thought when the spring began. Nobody has disappointed in camp, making the decisions that much more difficult.
3. Speaking of relievers, the buzz surrounding Bobby Jenks is notable, and the righty has had a nice week in camp. On Monday, pitching on his 30th birthday, he earned the win against the Yankees with another scoreless inning of relief (his fifth). What impressed the coaching staff more than anything was what he did to the one guy he let on.
With one out, New York center fielder Curtis Granderson laid down a bunt single. Knowing that the speedy Granderson would be running, Jenks did an expert job of keeping him close, throwing over and utilizing multiple pitches in the slide step while throwing to Nick Swisher. Granderson eventually did go but was thrown out by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Manager Terry Francona has said a few times this spring that the biggest adjustment for Jenks this year will be having to limit running games due to the fact that teams are more apt to take gambles on the bases in the seventh and eighth innings as opposed to the ninth, when Jenks used to throw. This was his first real test of the spring in that kind of a situation, and he passed with flying colors. It had Francona raving the next morning.
"The situation with Granderson on first, he was obviously going to run and through the whole at-bat [Jenks] executed his pitches, slide step, threw over and then he gave Salty a chance to throw him out."
4. Speaking of the Yankees (See how we do this transition thing? It creates a nice flow, don’t you think?), they were able to take something out of the meeting with the Red Sox as well. He won’t be a factor in the rivalry for a little while, but left-hander Manny Banuelos, a 20-year-old that some are comparing to Johan Santana, came as advertised. The Sox were obviously seeing him for the first time, so that played into some of their issues, but it’s clear that New York has a pretty interesting young pitcher there. Since we always keep one eye and one ear on the goings-on in the Bronx, it might be important to track Banuelos, particularly with the Yanks’ lean back end of the rotation. Perhaps he factors in as a late-season call-up this year, and as something much more than that in the future.
"Yeah, it was tough for him," Martinez said. "We had to talk to him a lot. It’s a kid, but trying to make him understand that this is the hard part of the game."
Victor Jose was a fixture in the clubhouse during the year-plus in which his father starred for the Red Sox. A touching scene took place last Sept. 26 when Boston finished up a three-game series in Yankee Stadium. Victor Jose was not going to be traveling with the team to Chicago and not planning on being at Fenway Park when the Sox wrapped up their season with three more against the Yankees. So, the elder Victor, perhaps knowing his days in a Red Sox uniform were coming to an end and his son would no longer be around the players he loved — and who loved him back — took the boy around to each player to say goodbye.
Fortunately, Martinez said his son has fit in just fine in the Tigers clubhouse. If you’ve ever been around the boy (or have seen him take batting practice), that would come as no surprise.
6. Martinez had nothing but great things to say about Jason Varitek, who welcomed Martinez with open arms at the 2009 trade deadline despite the fact that Martinez would immediately be taking his playing time. Here are some words uttered by both men Tuesday in Lakeland, where they met up once again.
Martinez: "I won’t get tired to saying, if it wasn’t for Jason when I got there it would’ve been way different for me. Jason helped me a lot. He’s just unbelievable. You can’t describe him."
Varitek: "Victor became a friend, not only a teammate, and he’s a heck of a player. These things are what you carry away from you when you’re done [playing baseball]."
7. Oh, the lineup. What will the lineup look like? With Adrian Gonzalez back and playing on a semi-regular basis, the questions are beginning to pop up once again. One cannot take much from any lineup configurations in spring training (Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, whose arrivals were the impetus for all the lineup debates in the first place, have played in the same game just once so far). However, Francona did discuss the scenario a bit more this week, stressing one component when filling out the top third of the order.
"We just want our lineup to set up the best," Francona said. "I guess I feel more about being able to keep the line moving. If they want to walk somebody or pitch around somebody, we want the other team to pay for it. I probably care more about guys up in the order getting on base as opposed to running…We love the speed but if you have to have one or the other we’d really rather them getting on base. That’s why we’ve gone to [J.D. Drew at leadoff] when we’ve had injuries, he’s going to get on base."
8. Thursday at City of Palms Park could offer up a pretty wild scene, to be sure. First of all, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, which always brings out the best in the spring-breakers in attendance. Second, the Red Sox figure to be wearing their green jerseys, for whatever that is worth to you. Lastly, it represents the first real day of the NCAA Tournament, which had the clubhouse abuzz Monday morning, the day after the selections were made. There was talk of a pool in which individual players, or a collection of them, are given one team pulled out of a hat, and some of the guys were getting excited talking about the possibilities. You can bet that the clubhouse TVs will be a bit more popular as the day goes on.
9. If any of you earn some dough in your own NCAA pool, you can put it to great use by donating to the relief efforts in Japan through the Red Sox Foundation. Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima are leading the way with personal donations of their own, and they helped collect $4,600 at the gate at City of Palms Park on Monday. The two will be joining Red Sox staff in collecting donations at the gate again Thursday. Every penny donated to the foundation goes directly to the Red Cross in order to benefit its relief work in the earthquake- and tsunami-stricken country.
