Because there are only seven teams here, each team has a designated camp day. Saturday was the Barnstormers’ turn. Instead of playing an exhibition game, they worked on situational defense and took batting practice. It was a light workout.
There was some news …
* The A ball pitcher I mentioned Friday never made it. As you can tell, this happens often in the Atlantic League. I guess you could say the Barnstormers were Bynum-ed.
* Clayton Andrews will be in camp Sunday and is expected to pitch one inning in the game against York. It sounds like Andrews really wants to be part of the team at the end of next month – if there’s room.
“I just want to check him out,” manager Frank Klebe said. “I want to see how he has been doing with his bullpens. I’ll let him have some game time, face some hitters and see how he feels about that. He’s a guy that we might be able to use later in the year.”
* Klebe confirmed that the team is permitted to carry an extra pitcher at the start of the season, assuming Gustavo Martinez makes it to Lancaster.
“We’ll carry 12 pitchers for a few weeks and see what happens,” the manager said. “We don’t want to let anybody go in case somebody goes down. That’s the No. 1 reason. It’s early, the arms aren’t really where they should be. We want to make sure we cover our bases and it will give us some time to evaluate Martinez and some other pitchers.”
* Dario Delgado said he was property of the Long Island Ducks for about three weeks after the team plucked players from Atlantic City. The Ducks decided to release all of those players from their contracts. The only one they signed back was Ben Grezlovski.
* Throwing batting practice is an art and Klebe is a master. He was once a BP pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles when they played in Memorial Stadium. But if the skipper doesn’t get some help, his arm is going to fall off. Rick Wise is able to throw some BP again. He couldn’t last season because of a bad back. Glenn Murray hasn’t quite gotten the art down. He was yanked after a few pitches in practice today because he couldn’t get the ball over the plate.
* Murray was once a speedster in the outfield when he was coming up through the minors. He ran a 6.3 60-yard dash early in his career. Time and injuries have slowed him down a bit. What’s Murray’s 60 time now? “Two days,” he joked.
* Chris Van Rossum has awesome BP power. He launched three shots into the trees over the right-field fence. Steve Van Note and Clyde Williams also put one out, which is no easy feat. The practice fields here have big-league dimensions.
* The Barnstormers have a new trainer and a new clubhouse attendant this year. Dave Ohl has replaced Mark Francis as trainer. Jeff Daws, a grad student at Millersville, took Max Digiulio’s place as the clubbie.
Sunday is the first installment of the York-Lancaster rivalry. Are you ready?
I am ready. Bring on the Revs.