I wish I had more to say on tonight’s festivities, but frankly it panned out exactly as I had expected. Manny did not produce a fireworks inducing hitting display, and in expected fashion, dribbled a weakly hit ball at third and jogged down the base path towards first. I didn’t think anything different would happen. As I said previously, sluggers never manage to show off the skills that make them millions of dollars, and it doesn’t bother me. The guy is rusty, on a rehab assignment and too far from home. Im just glad a lot of people came out, whether or not they were cheering on the Storm.
Jeff Weaver, also on rehab with the 66ers, cruised through his first 2 innings before running into a bit of trouble in the 3rd, surrendering 2 runs. His breaking ball was coming sharply inside on left handed batters, and looked dangerous from where I was sitting. The guy can still deal though, and he made some batters look foolish to prove it.
I wasn’t so happy with the teams play tonight. It was lazy, sloppy, loafing. You could blame it on the presence of Manny, but that would be disingenuous. Poor positioning seemed to be the name of the game because the outfield was playing too deep and the infield was playing too tight to the bags. Though this didn’t stop some lazy plays on the bag, as two grounders escaped down the left field line, because the glove didn’t get down fast enough. I think half of the 66ers runs could have been prevented.
Ill probably update on run prevention soon, because this is becoming a theme.
