February 6, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Truck Day Fort Report
As the Truck departs Fenway on its way to Fort Myers, SoxProspects is happy to bring you the first edition of the Fort Report, providing notes on the early arrivers to Minor League Spring Training (known around these parts as “MLST”). We at the site already have a few representatives down in the Fort, and should regularly have eyes and ears down in Florida though March. Additionally, multiple staff members will be at MLST from February 27 through March 3 and March 12 through March 16, so we’ll try to bring you extra first-hand reports during that time frame.This year some “veteran” minor-leaguers were allowed to arrange for their own accommodations (outside of the team hotel), if they reported to Spring Training by February 2 … Many players arrived on Monday or even earlier, including Adam Mills, Chris Jones, Daniel Nava, and Richie Lentz … This week, the players have been reporting to the complex at 7:30 AM, hitting the fields from about 9:00 AM to noon, and then scrimmaging at 1:00 pm … Michael Almanzar, Ryan Kalish, Zach Daeges, and Chris Carter have all looked strong swinging the bat … Also looking good in the hopes of returning to full form are Anthony Rizzo and Ty Weeden … Oscar Tejeda looks like he packed on some muscle, and has also added a cool red tint to his hair … Nick Hagadone is reportedly at about 85%, and should be ready to go in either April or May … Will Latimer is another player who bulked up over the off-season, and has shown some impressive control early on … Ryan Colvin is in the Fort rehabbing from December 2008 surgery to repair a labrum tear – he’ll likely miss the entire 2009 season … Austin Bailey is also back in town rehabbing his shoulder …the MLST game schedule probably won’t be released until early March, but expect the first scrimmages against other teams to start around March 13 … Jon Lester and Kevin Youklis were among the first few major leaguers to report to camp … Here are the key dates on the Sox big league Spring Training schedule:
Feb. 12 — Reporting day for pitchers and catchers
Feb. 14 — First workout for pitchers and catchers
Feb. 16 — Reporting day for positional players
Feb. 18 — First full-squad workout
Feb. 25 — Spring Training games begin