It’s absolute nonsense that a game featuring so many top prospects and recent graduates wasn’t televised, but then again, maybe we’re all better off for not having seen this matchup on Saturday night. The Yankees really didn’t bring much to West Palm Beach, with a sextet of pitchers walking more Nationals than they struck out, and a collection of people who called themselves hitters failed to manage much from the Yankee side of the box score. It’s a good thing these games don’t count, because New York went down without a whimper 3-0.
I thought Will Warren was fine today, if not electric. He was facing a lineup that’s pretty representative of what the Nationals will throw out there in the regular season — and that’s an indictment on the state of that once-again-rebuilding franchise. He threw the four-seam fastball nearly half the time, and half his whiffs came against the heater as well. Warren did struggle a little more with his control than in his previous outings, walking two in four full innings against three strikeouts.
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One of those walks was a successful Dylan Crews challenge under the ABS system, and I wonder how (if at all) we will distinguish reviewed walks/strikeouts over the course of a full season. The one run that Warren allowed was unearned, as George Lombard Jr. couldn’t cleanly throw out Luis García Jr. to load the bases in the fourth, then Crews would come home on Brady House’s sac fly to make the game 1-0.
Jake Bird took over for Warren and struggled mightily, walking the first man he faced, allowing a single, then a triple off James Wood’s bat that pushed those two runners across. He would get Crews swinging and a lazy fly ball from CJ Abrams, but for a player who landed flat on his face upon acquisition last year, this wasn’t exactly the best way to stake your claim on a regular-season MLB bullpen role.
A bunch of the Yankee first-stringers are playing in the World Baseball Classic, and even the second-stringers didn’t seem to make the trip to West Palm Beach. That left a bunch of prospects and org depth, and while Jasson Domínguez, Lombard, and Spencer Jones all managed to reach base — Jones twice, with a single and a walk — there wasn’t much offense to go around. The club managed just three hits overall on the day, and the one time that Lombard Jr. did reach, he was picked off at first base for an easy retirement. It’s rarely a good thing when your side manages one hit more than the cumulative number of errors they made.
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There’s been plenty of buzz about Lombard in camp, between his strong showing in Grapefruit League games and Anthony Volpe continuing to rehab, the nominal incumbent hasn’t even played so far this spring. Today’s a good reminder of how far George still has to go though, and how he is still a product requiring some sanding, polishing and seasoning. We’ve all seen and read about the talent the 20-year old boasts, but there’s still a long way from Double-A to the majors.
The Yankees stay “on the road” tomorrow, bussing to Port St. Lucie to take on the Mets. Ryan Weathers will get the ball for his second exhibition start, coming off that stellar start against these same Nationals, the outing that had the internet abuzz about his raw stuff. The challenge for Weathers will be refining that raw product into something a little more dependable, and that will be the focus of his start tomorrow. First pitch comes at you at 1:10pm Eastern, note the time change tonight, and this one will be on TV (SNY).
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