Game Recap

In a game that may be forgotten before writers' heads hit their pillows tonight, A.J. Burnett showed Boston no spring training mercy.

Consistently pounding the strike zone with an eye-popping breaking ball and a 95 mile-per-hour heater, Burnett made sure that the Red Sox lineup will not sleep quite as soundly.

Boston's socks began to take on a shade of green by the end of Burnett's outing, as they became envious of the Yankees new flamethrower.

In Derek Jeter's second at bat, he blooped a down-and-away knuckler from Tim Wakefield to short right-field, but Teixeira followed him grounding into a 5-4-3 DP.

After almost becoming the starting second baseman for Venezuela in the final match of the World Baseball Classic, Jose Lopez has now returned to Seattle, as the Venezuelans lost in the semi-finals to Korea 10-2 last Saturday.

And now that many Seattle Mariners are back from their respected teams, the Mariners can show that with their added players, they can improve on their .500 record, the mark currently sit at after a 5-1 win today against the San Francisco Giants.

It was an interesting game for the Mariners as former ace, Randy Johnson gave up two runs in three innings.

The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers by a score of 4-3.

Do you get the title though? Grading "Jobination." It's like, grading "domination" except I put Joba and domination together.

Joba has been dominant with strikeouts in spring training.

It's 79 degrees in Tampa. I'm jealous because I like the heat. It's 50 here in Morris Plains so it's not that bad.

In cementing his place as the opening day starter for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in AAA, Phil Hughes gave the Minnesota Twins all they could handle and more.

Hughes lowered his spring ERA to an impressive 2.19, while limiting the Twins to just four base runners in 4 1/3 innings pitched.

The Yankees' 4-2 victory over the Twins marked their eighth consecutive win, and it was their second time beating the Twins this week.

There was some great news out of yesterday's ball game. Too bad it was overshadowed, at least in part, by the news that came out afterwards.

PIRATES 6, PHILLIES 5
at Clearwater, Fla.
Friday, March 13

Pirates on the mound

Left-hander Zach Duke threw the ball well in 3.2 innings. He allowed just one hit and one walk and struck out two. He got into a bases-loaded jam in the fourth after a leadoff single to Eric Bruntlett, a two-out walk to Ryan Howard, and an error from third baseman Andy LaRoche to load the bases, but left-hander David Davidson took over and got out of the inning without a run scoring. Daniel McCutchen allowed five runs in 1.1 innings.

Puerto Rico remains undefeated through the first round of the World Baseball Classic. I must say, I'm very impressed with their team unity and great play so far. 

I say so far because we were all stunned when the Netherlands defeated the heavily favored Dominican Republic (TWICE, actually), and we may be in for another upset in the later rounds.