Sports Watch Monitor Spring Training Cactus League Reports
Sports Watch Monitor Spring Training Cactus League Reports
By Doug Upstone
Over the next month, we will be supplying Line Moves articles and Baseball articles.
One of the advantages of living in the Phoenix area besides the weather this time of year is the ability to see spring training baseball. This is where you can see half the teams in baseball and be able to draw strong conclusions for wagering purposes on season win totals.
We start our coverage in Peoria, where the San Diego faced Seattle.
The Game: Seattle jumped on Eric Stults in his two innings of work for three runs on their way to a convincing 7-1 rout. Robinson Cano had a laser single into the outfield and added a walk in his debut and Logan Morrison had a couple of hits for the Mariners. Erasmo Ramirez, the projected No. 3 starter for the M’s had two quality innings and the rest of the Seattle pitchers were more than adequate.
Nothing to be gained from Stults effort, he a veteran pitcher whose goal is to be ready for his first start of the regular season. One Padres pitcher that caught my eye was reliever Anthony Carter, who showed a very good fastball.
For comic relief which will happen in early spring games, left fielder Alex Dickerson evidently never saw a fly ball hit his way and it fell 20 feet from him. This happens, but the question I had was why he was not wearing sunglasses and even after this occurred he still did not have them on.
Padres Prospects: San Diego has a posted win total of 79 and with their starting pitching and bullpen, they could beat the number. This will only be accomplished if they do not find more offense after scoring just 3.8 runs per game last season.
In order for this to occur, players like Chase Headley, Yonder Alonso and Carlos Quentin have to produce big seasons.
San Diego starting pitchers will not impress most sports bettors, but they have depth 1 thus 5 led by Andrew Cashner.
With the Pads bullpen and starting pitching, if San Diego can generate offense, they could well surpass 79 wins even in the rugged AL West.
Mariners Chances: Cano makes Seattle better offensively and defensively. While he might not run out every ground ball out to satisfy coaches, his wisdom and other work ethic should rub off positively on the other members of the M’s.
Seattle is not without question marks, looking to fill the back end of the rotation and an uncertain bullpen.
Everyone is wondering what kind of offensive numbers the outfield can produce and Justin Smoak has to do better than last year’s 50 rbi’s.
It certainly appears an awful lot would have to go right for Seattle to surpass their 81 win total projection, but if they follow Cano’s lead, the Mariners could gain confidence and have a surprising campaign.
