ballnine - Roll With It

 

By Kevin Kernan 

March 3, 2021 

There is a science to watching spring training games and it’s not what you think.

This spring is especially difficult because they continue to make the game so hard to watch. From pitchers not having to get three outs in an inning anymore (and you thought you were spending big money on beers and tickets to see a baseball game), rollover innings, short games, limited fans in the stands, mask mandates, this is no longer your father’s fun in the sun spring training.

It’s not even your older brother’s spring training.

Roll with the rollover innings, just make sure you pay full price for the limited tickets for the shortened games and those fake outs that now bring an inning to a close with a simple wave of a manager’s hand.

Roll with it. Live with it. That should be the slogan for 2021.

And not just baseball. Everything is a little bit crazy these days.

Learn to deal with it so you don’t drive yourself crazy. In so many ways, common sense has left the building. This is not just about Covid.

Baseball has been losing its internal balance for decades and it has really gone wacky the last year or so. When you are one of the richest franchises in the game and you trade Mookie Betts – a generational player – for payroll flexibility, there is something drastically wrong.

But like I said, roll with it, live with it. Especially you Red Sox fans. More on that later.

The biggest thing I look for in spring training is intelligent aggressiveness. Tells you a lot.

That goes for both hitters and pitchers. Let’s start with one of the most intriguing clubs in baseball this season, the Dunedin/Buffalo/Toronto Blue Jays, or as I like to call them the DBT Blue Jays.

Leadoff hitter is essentially the point guard of a baseball team and the Jays have one of the best now in free agent signee George Springer. The Mets not signing Springer gave the Blue Jays an opportunity for quick success and the chance to knock off the Yankees and the Rays in the AL East.

It’s not just that Springer brings it every day, it’s the way he plays, the all-out aggressiveness in a game that has slowed to sloth speed because of Overnerding.

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