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Well, that will make Joe Simpson happy, if nobody else. For those of us who are more interested in production than hitting philosophy, he still hasn’t hit a home run, though he has five doubles.
Bobby says in this notebook that if Paul Byrd begins the season on the DL he’ll carry 12 pitchers instead of 11. That would mean either (a) we’ll be stuck with 12 pitchers all year, or (b) he’d have to send two pitchers down when Byrd came back. But I’m happy just to see the possibility that they’ll go with “just” 11. What it comes down to, however, is that Donzell McDonald and Ramon Castro might as well make arrangements to start the season in Richmond, and that they never had any chance of making the team whatever they did.
UPDATE: I’m an idiot. As Pat points out, I misread the article. Bobby is saying he will start with 12 pitchers if Byrd is on the roster. If not, 11. So either a fifth outfielder or a utility infielder will make the team, though I’d bet they go to 12 when Byrd comes back.
Rafael Furcal is playing again, and Marcus Giles had a pinch-hit homer yesterday.
Mac, you misread the article. Cox said he’d carry 12 pitchers if Byrd was on the roster opening day, not if he was on the DL (presumably for insurance if Byrd pican’t tch many innings).
that should say “can’t pitch” not pican’t
Argh. You’re right.
Regardless of whether Javy is hitting home runs or not with this approach, it does sound like he is at least driving the ball hard, which has to be seen as an improvement over the last few years. For a while now he’s looked like he just wasn’t seeing the ball well and was guessing a lot, and had a slow swing that led yto weak grounders. If he can carry this into the regular season, he’ll at least be more fun and less painful to _watch_ this season.
Colin