Red Sox Spring Training Delight – 3/25

Boston Red Sox starter Alfredo Aceves, right, covers home as Philadelphia Phillies' Shane Victorino scores on a wild pitch during the first inning of a spring training baseball game in Sarasota, Fla., Saturday, March 24, 2012.

While we didn’t get a chance to talk about the outing of Clay Buchholz on Friday night because of the site transfer issues, we did use our time to watch most of the game between the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday afternoon.

And while that game was going on, another squad from the Red Sox was in Jupiter talking on the Miami Marlins. Now what makes that interesting is not the incident when Bobby Valentine waved goodbye to Ozzie Guillen after he was ejected, it’s the fact that Felix Doubront was trying to state his case for one of the final spots in the rotation. Of course Alfredo Aceves was trying to do the same thing back in Ft. Myers.

If you had to pick a winner for the day, you would have to say it was Doubront. While Aceves was getting shelled by the Phillies, Doubront was dominating the Marlins.

Aceves gave up nine runs on 10 hits and a walk while striking out three in just three innings of work. Three of those 10 hits were home runs including back-to-back johnsons by Pete Orr and Freddy Galvis. On the other hand, Doubront allowed one run, scattering five hits and one walk while striking out two in six innings of work.

So what do we take away from this?

As far as the Aceves outing, probably nothing. While he didn’t say he was suffering from the “dead arm” phase of spring training that some pitchers hit, you have to wonder if he is. Regardless of whether he is or not, it really shouldn’t affect his status for the competition in the rotation.

Everyone is allowed a bad outing once in a while and after all, this is spring training. You’d rather have him get blown up during spring training than in a regular season game.

And while we didn’t see Doubront’s outing, you would have to think that with Valentine there watching, that Doubront will likely claim one of those final two spots.

I do think we’ll know more after Daniel Bard takes the mound today against the Toronto Blue Jays. So these final 11 or so days of spring training will definitely need to be followed as the entire roster starts to take shape.

To see the lineups for today’s game as well as the links from the media, please click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

After splitting their split-squad doubleheader yesterday, the Red Sox head north to Dunedin for matchup with their AL East rivals, the Toronto Blue Jays.

First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. and the game will be televised in the Red Sox television market on NESN. You can also listen to the game on WEEI 93.7 FM/850 AM.

Here are today’s lineups:


1. Mike Aviles	SS	1. Kelly Johnson	2B
2. Jacoby Ellsbury	CF	2. Yunel Escobar	SS
3. Adrian Gonzalez	1B	3. Jose Bautista	RF
4. Darnell McDonald	LF	4. Adam Lind	1B
5. Ryan Lavarnway	DH	5. Edwin Encarnacion	DH
6. Josh Kroeger	RF	6. Brett Lawrie	3B
7. Kelly Shoppach	C	7. Eric Thames	LF
8. Nate Spears	3B	8. Colby Rasmus	CF
9. Jonathan Hee	2B	9. Jeff Mathis	C
Daniel Bard	SP	Aaron Laffey	SP