Monday, March 5, 2018

Which way the wind blows

Phil Hughes and Anibal Sanchez -- two of the three rotation candidates I recently grouped together as "Tier One" -- each gave up homers in their appearances during the weekend.

Hughes actually surrendered two, Sanchez one. But one big difference was that in Hughes's case, the wind was blowing out; for Sanchez, the wind was blowing in.

Many factors mess with spring training numbers, and this is one of less obvious ones. I've been to enough games at Fort Myers to know that it's windy. When the wind is blowing in at Hammond Stadium, it takes a lot to hit one out.

Judging from the radio descriptions, Hughes was pitching in the reverse situation. The wind was adding distance to fly balls.

It's far too early to reach a final evaluation on any of them anyway. But it's worth remembering that the stat sheet does not reveal everything worth considering.

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