After Saturday's rain out, my wife surprised me by suggesting that we go to Port Charlotte on Sunday to see the Twins play the Rays there. Which we did.
Miguel Sano played third base, drove in a pair of runs with a hard-hit single in a five-run inning, and had little opportunity to field his position. I thought he might have reacted a tad slowly on one base hit to his left, but I doubt the ball was playable from where he was stationed.
Much has been made this spring of Sano's weight and conditioning. Looking at him in his uniform, he doesn't look rotund. He is just a big man. I haven't had an opportunity to gauge his mobility, but in an earlier game he made one of his specialty charge-a-slow-roller plays with no issue.
He has yet to play two days in a row, but that's probably not unique at this stage of training camp. I'm not sure Brian Dozier has either, and no middle-aged (or older) paunchy columnist is yelling about him.
I do expect MLB to suspend Sano over the sexual assault allegation that emerged this winter. I won't hazard a guess as to how long that suspension might be. I see no reason to believe that he'll be on the disabled list when opening day arrives later this month.
---
One notable difference between the Twins camp and the Rays camp: Fans are free to wander over to the minor league fields at the Twins Fort Myers complex. The back fields at the Rays camp were closed off Sunday.
Charlotte Sports Park itself is a nice facility. In my (probably biased) opinion it's not quite as good as Hammond Stadium, but it's rather comperable. Both stadiums are home to teams in the High-A Florida State League; in Port Charlotte it's the Charlotte Stone Crabs, affilate of the Rays.
One advantage to the Charlotte park is the team store, which has caps and shirts for the minor league tenant during spring training. Hammond Stadium's store is, at least during spring training, devoted to Twins items, nothing of the Miracle.
No comments:
Post a Comment