Adrian Gonzalez will return to playing first base for the Dodgers tomorrow before joining Team Mexico for the WBC, as Alana Rizzo of Sportsnet LA tweets. The veteran first baseman has been battling a minor injury described as “tennis elbow,” but it seems that it has improved enough to allow participation in the global tournament.
Here’s more from the rest of the NL West:
- We already checked in on Dodgers lefty Scott Kazmir, who left his spring outing today with hip tightness. We’ll need to wait for more news, though it seems he won’t head straight for an MRI; instead, as Eric Stephen of SB Nation tweets, Kazmir will be reevaluated tomorrow. The veteran southpaw clearly wasn’t pleased with the health issue, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports. “The frustration is through the roof right now,” said the veteran southpaw, who bemoaned the need to “manipulate my body just to be able to get through an outing.”
- While there’s nominally a competition for the Giants’ fifth starter role, primarily featuring Matt Cain and Ty Blach, Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News writes that it may not be much of a battle. Though manager Bruce Bochy says nothing has been decided, he did intentionally bring Blach on in the middle of an inning in his most recent outing. Per Bochy, it could be that the young southpaw opens the year in the bullpen, functioning as the club’s long man and/or in a setup capacity. (Certainly, utilizing him to piggyback with Cain could make some sense, if there’s roster space. There are loads of competitors for the club’s few open pitching jobs.)
- There’s little doubt that the Padres are open to multiple possibilities in their rotation. As MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell writes, though, the club has begun to pare down the number of competitors. Righty Cesar Vargas was the first to go; he was sent down to minor-league camp in part to give him enough time on the hill to build back to full strength after dealing with a flexor strain in 2016. Vargas, 25, had turned in six eye-opening starts before the day of his injury, and could certainly still enter the picture at some point during the season to come.
- One Padres starting job will go to righty Jered Weaver, who Cassavell spoke with about his progress thus far. The 34-year-old says that focusing on flexibility has allowed him to make huge strides in his mechanics, calling it “night-and-day from last year.” He’s hoping the change will make him looser and allow better extension, while also preventing the neck and shoulder issues that plagued him previously.
Giants shouldn’t give Cain more than 10 starts to show what he has left if he isn’t getting results. If you are paying a guy 20 plus million dollars regardless it’s best he not be costing the team a chance at winning every fifth day as well. Hopefully the disaster that was Santiago Casilla last year thought Bochy not to blindly run the veteran out there regardless of that the results have to say.
10? I say five, tops. If I was the manager I’d start Blach to open the season and keep Cain in extended spring training.
For three full years Cain has been inconsistent at best, terrible at worst. It’s early but right now his ERA is over 7. At some point, regardless of contract and respect for the player, you just cut your losses because it’s a detriment to a winning team.
With you bringing up ERA, we should probably send Bum and Moore to extended spring as well since their ERA’s are higher than Cain’s. Good thing we have Blach, Blackburn and Beede all out performing them…
I think 10 starts is a good leash. I believe that being in his “final” year, Bochy will make the change if and when he needs to. If you drop it to 5, then you are saying that a bad month should/could determine your roster spot. This isn’t the NFL. Calm down and let the spring play out. Having depth at the SP position is a good thing; It creates insurance for your rotation and also potential trade chips that the Giants don’t necessarily have.
It’s utterly shocking that Lamet, Kelly and Vargas habe been sent out to minuted jaye camp. SHOCKING I tell you!
Indeed.Nothing is worse than minuted jaye camp
They should bring back upvoting, and you should get many votes up.
You never come back from there
Minor league camp even.
Weaver has a confirmed starting job.
Preller’s Quest for the First Pick made some important progress today.
Weaver is great guy
So was Charley Weaver, but he still had the worst fastball on Hollywood Squares …..
Our rotation is Richard, Chacin, Weaver, Cahill and one other starter. Cosart, Clemens, and Friedrich are out of options, so they will at least be on the team. Vargas, Lamet, and the others that were sent down never had a shot at the rotation. Perdomo will join them in the minors before the start of the season.
From what they are saying on Padres boards, Weaver was throwing 81-82 today. While he is saying his mechanics are better, his velocity has not improved, his back has not been surgically repaired, and his degenerative neck condition has degenerated further in the past year. The best we can hope for from him as Padres fans is that he can eat up innings until May or June when one of the kids is ready.
They don’t care. It’s pretty obvious that they aren’t actually trying to win games this year. Perhaps he can teach some of the younger pitchers different pitches or some form of help with dealing with struggles.
I don’t buy a ton into the mentor player thing, but for a team like the padres with lots of young players, having someone who has seen such a change in their skills, weaver could be helpful to talk to?
Yeah hopefully Weaver will be able to eat some innings, but at this rate, I don’t even see him lasting past May.
At least all those games he loses will help put the Padres out front in terms of draft position.
he’s gonna win 20 games at least
He sounds like Lincecum did every off season.
At this point, best case scenario for Weaver is that he doesn’t have to leave the mound in an ambulance at some point this season. I guess it could worse, Shields could still be taking the ball every 5th day.
Shields pitches today in Spring Training. He gave up like 4 runs in 3 innings, so it looks like he’s already in midseason form.
*pitched
Unfortunately Cain is done…..