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March, 2003
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Fun in the Sun
Barry Bonds never grows old, and neither does watching him. He homered in his first spring at-bat and through Sunday had an exhibition-leading seven homers and a .972 slugging percentage. MLB.TV brought him to your computers with an exclusive live video broadcast Monday against Arizona, and you can see the archived replay. We also wanted to get a look at the slugger from the other side of the Pacific, and the Godzillascope shows Hideki Matsui getting plenty of opportunity to acclimate himself to our Majors. Matsui was leading the Yankees with 51 at-bats and had three homers, 10 RBIs and a .314 average. Listen to his final spring at-bats exclusively with GameDay Audio at MLB.com. Some of the biggest new faces in new places have delivered, as promised.
View Spring Training Coverage for Your Team >
Jim Thome was making gradual spring progress with four homers for Philadelphia, and new teammate David Bell had a three-homer game and was hitting .375. Florida catcher Pudge Rodriguez has answered offseason questions this spring by going 17-for-46 (.370) and Hee Seop Choi (.333) looks like he's ready to handle the new Cubs first-base gig for Dusty Baker.
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| Tom Glavine |
A fairly large jury has been out all spring while waiting to see Tom Glavine conform to Metdom, and any skeptics gradually fell in line after a very Glavinesque outing last weekend. He is getting comfortable, and we saw former Braves teammates trying to get comfortable over the sight of him in an NL East opponent's uniform. Bartolo Colon's story has been the same, as White Sox manager Jerry Manuel expects the new workhorse to be in his groove for the start of the regular season. Two Yankee workhorses are back in their groove, as Roger Clemens is on for Opening Day and Mike Mussina has overcome Florida rain to stay on course for his 2003 debut.
Bob Feller once said to ignore everything you see in Spring Training until the last two weeks, but we've enjoyed the show so far. How could you not watch Albert Pujols and wonder if the Cards have their first Triple Crown champ since Ducky Medwick? He's in the top three around the Majors in average (.429, third), homers (six, T-3) and RBIs (23, first). More >
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The Beat Goes On
We're watching these final days of Spring Training closely. Second base was thought to be Joey Thurston's job to lose in Los Angeles, but Cezar Izturis' strong spring performance means that battle will go down to the wire. How will the Cubs' bullpen-by-committee work until closer Antonio Alfonseco (hamstring) becomes available in May? Casey Fossum's in the Boston rotation as a rare homegrown southpaw, but how will the rest of the staff shake out? Rosters are growing shorter, and so are the days till that first real pitch.
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What We Didn't Expect
Fantasy owners -- and Rangers fans -- are still holding their breath to see how Alex Rodriguez opens the season. He was sidelined by a herniated disk in his neck, but was expected to play in a minor league game at the start of this week and should be available for the season opener. There have been plenty of unexpected twists this spring, most notably the resurgence of Junior Griffey. The star for much of this spring had half of his six spring homers in one game, and he ranked fourth with 17 RBIs. Everyone now knows about Mark Teixeira (22-for-71, 6 HR, 15 RBIs), arguably the top Major League prospect across the board -- and pushing down the stretch for a full-time Rangers job. How many of us knew what Todd Sears could do? The Twins' phenom had five homers and 33 total bases in 18 games and avoided Sunday's deep roster cuts.
One of the most pleasant surprises this spring has been the successful comeback so far of that rebuilt, reconstructed or rehabbed Dodger trio: Darren Dreifort (13.1 IP, 17 K), Kevin Brown (21 IP, 2 ER, 26 K) and Kazuhasa Ishii (11 IP, 2 ER, 8 K). Jarrod Washburn threw the first pitch of the last Major League season, but he won't throw the opener for the Angels this time because of a shoulder sprain. The good news for Angels fans is that he's expected to pitch for the defending champs later in the season's first week. Arizona's Randy Johnson has been right there again on the strikeout list (third with 24), but few people expected his new rotation mate Elmer Dessens to look so good this spring. Although the acquisition from Cincinnati was roughed up his last time out, it now looks like you have three sure worries if you're in a series against the Diamondbacks.
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