March 19, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Fort Report: MLST games underway
My apologies for the short Fort Report today, but we’ll have a lot more for you in the coming week.
- The minor league spring training game schedule got underway on Wednesday against the Twins. Here's the little we can tell you having not attended the games. Adam Mills started the Triple-A game and Madison Younginer started the Low-A game. Community member Waterview attended the game and reported that Randor Bierd looked great, throwing his fastball downhill and keeping it low in the zone, while also fooling a number of batters with his changeup. It was also noted that Jose Iglesias and Mike Jones each had doubles while Ryan Lavarnway looked decent behind the plate in short time.
- Minor league campers who got into major league games since my last Fort Report were Bubba Bell, Oscar Tejeda, Matt Sheely, Ryan Khoury, Nate Spears, Anthony Rizzo, Che-Hsuan Lin, David Mailman, Jeff Natale, Jason Place, Ray Chang, Ryan Kalish, Reid Engel, and Kade Keowen.
- Some quick links: Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reports on Scott Atchison’s attempt to land the last spot in Boston’s bullpen … Dan Barbarisi of the Providence Journal notes that Gil Velazquez broke his thumb on Tuesday sliding headfirst into first base against the Astros, and that the infielder will miss six weeks … Barbarisi also adds that Casey Kelly is likely to start the year in the Double-A Portland rotation … Sean McAdam of CSNNE brings us an interesting piece on the adjustments that Michael Bowden is making heading into the 2010 season … Alex Speier of WEEI noted on Wednesday that Jed Lowrie has been diagnosed with mono.
- In case you missed it, I did a Q&A with Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston this past weekend. Check it out, we hope to collaborate with ESPNBoston on a weekly basis this season. If you're inclined, send us some thoughts regarding what you'd like to see out of the collaboration.
- As I’ve mentioned a few times, four SoxProspects staff members are headed down to minor league spring training next week. During that time, we’ll be sending updates as often as we can via Twitter. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to sign up and follow the SoxProspects Twitter feed, and while you’re at it you should follow Chris Mellen and Chris Hatfield as well.
Chris Hatfield, Jonathan Singer, John Gray, and Corey Hersch of SoxProspects.com contributed to this report.