spring training notes

I just caught a bit of the Sox spring training game against the Padres, a game that started at 3:05 and ended about 15 minutes ago. I think we all know why that is, even if he was only pitching for 4 innings or so.

I love the way Buehrle pitches. He gets it, throws it, gets it back, and throws it again. It's almost like just doing something before you have time to overthink it, and although some mistakes can result, Buehrle has been around long enough to fix those mistakes quickly. I also love his pick off move. Today he picked off 3 runners alone. Basically, if I were someone like, oh I dunno, Denard Span or Grady Sizemore, I would run wth caution when Buehrle is on the mound (Ok, Ok, Brian Anderson too...he hit for the cycle in yesterday's Royal crushing of the D-Backs).

Someone who has impressed me throughout spring training has been Andruw Jones. When I first hear that we signed him I was a little skeptical, as most Sox fas were. But instead of impressing me with power (today was only his second home run), he's been a bit of a speedster on the bases, stealing and hitting triples and such. I've also been plesently surprised with Rios so far, as I have been keeping a close eye on him after a very anticlimactic stint last year after we aquired him at the waver deadline.

basically, there are 5 things that need to happen during the season to secure a division title and maybe more:

1) Rios has to hit
2) good defense
3) Rios has to hit
4) Rios has to hit
5) good bullpen

I think these things are very plausable. Our division is by far the weakest, and i think we'll have to worry about the Tigers and Twins for the first half, and then the Tigers will kind of fall off and then, as usual, we will just have to worry about the Twins. I think between the two, itwill all come down to the pitching, and that happens to be a category we kind of pwn them in at the moment (especially with Nathan possibly missing the whole season...thank you, AL Central gods!).

I'm loking foreward to a good season all around and I will continue to scout spring training to get a better idea of how things are going to play out for my southsiders this year. ^_^