Besides Manny Ramirez arriving at camp on Monday, believe it or not there were a few other things happening there.
Daisuke Matsuzaka took the mound again pitching batting practice. This time, he faced some hitters you may have heard of: Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Wily Mo Peña, Alex Ochoa, and Alex “Don’t call me Joey” Cora. Dice-K threw 50 pitches and the only one that was a semblance of a hit was off the bat of Big Papi. Ramirez stood there and watched 3 pitches go by him. Have we seen that before? Actually, a look of hitter like to “track” the pitches before swinging.
Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald reported that Manny looked “sharp” during his batting practice session. Oddly enough, he also states that Manny started taking swings back in December. The odd part of course is Manny doing something in the offseason. Manny is a notorious slow starter and maybe he decided that he wanted to do something in April besides complain that it is cold.
A member of the Red Sox senior citzien brigade bounced back from his lower back strain and was back working out on Monday. Mike Timlin, who most likely used some miracle cure, was back working out with the club. When asked why he was back so quickly, Timlin could only say this, “I had forgot to take my Geritol on Sunday.”
Terry Francona said that Josh Beckett has been “phenomenal” so far in spring training. This is good news for us Sox fans as we watched Beckett dominate early last season, then become a victim of the long ball. Chicks do dig the long ball unless your a pitcher giving them up.
That is all for now as I will be back later with “Tuesday’s Half Marathon Around AL Camps.”
