Phillies rally past NY Yankees 4-3
Cardinals beat Red Sox Scotland success ‘excites’ Maitland
CLEARWATER, Fla, Feb 27, (Agencies): Domonic Brown’s chance to contribute is right now. Tommy Joseph’s opportunity should come in due time.
Brown and Joseph hit long home runs in the seventh inning and the Philadelphia Phillies rallied past the New York Yankees 4-3 Tuesday for their first win of the exhibition season.
Brown connected off Zach Nuding, sending his second home run this spring over the batter’s eye in center field. the 25-year-old Brown, once the Phillies’ best prospect, is competing for the vacancy in left field.
“That was a well-struck baseball ... the ball went a long ways,” Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel said. “He put a good swing on it: nice, short and compact, with balance at the plate.”
“His swing is more fluid and compact,” he said. “It’s more explosive.”
Joseph, a catcher considered by some as the Phillies’ current top hitting prospect, sent a tworun drive deep over the left-field fence. He was acquired from San Francisco last summer in the trade that sent Hunter Pence to the eventual World Series champions.
Ichiro Suzuki went 3 for 3 to lead the Yankees. He legged out an infield single, stole second and scored on Mark Teixeira’s double in the first inning off Kyle Kendrick.
Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick gave up three hits and one run in two innings.
Kendrick, a swingman on the pitching staff in the last three years, has a permanent spot in the rotation for the first time since the spring of 2008, when he was coming off his rookie season.
“It was nice to get out there,” Kendrick said. “I was excited. A little amped up a little bit in the first inning. I felt good. The body felt good. I was throwing mostly strikes.”
Cardinals 15, Red Sox 4 In Fort Myers, Fla, just being on the mound was good enough for Jaime Garcia. Tossing scoreless ball made it even better.
Making his first appearance since injuring his shoulder in the playoffs, the left-hander got through two shutout innings Tuesday as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox 15-4.
In Game 2 of the NL division series against Washington, Garcia was pulled after two innings because of a strained rotator cuff and inflammation.
Garcia kept the Red Sox scoreless, working around three hits and a walk. He threw 43 pitches, 30 for strikes, and struck out two.
“I’m excited about today,” Garcia said. “This is good, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you this is the best I’ve ever felt. No. This is good. This is good enough. I’m excited about that. But compared to last year, this is something I can build on.”
Garcia gave up consecutive singles to Jackie Bradley Jr. and Daniel Nava to open the game before retiring the next three batters, including Ryan Lavarnway on a strikeout.
With one out in the second, Garcia walked Drew Sutton and gave up a double to Jose Iglesias before getting out of the inning, fanning Bradley to end the inning.
“To be honest with you, there was some excitement going on there especially because it was the first time in a real game after the stuff that happened last year,” Garcia said. “A lot of good things from it. Physically, I feel fine. A little jumpy at the beginning. I was happy with the way I felt physically, with the way it went.”
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny was pleased with what he saw from Garcia.
“I made a commitment to myself not to microscope him,” Matheny said. “I just know he’s going to be out there. He’s going to do the things that he says he’s going to be out there to do. He looked good today.”
Boston starter Ryan Dempster made his Grapefruit League debut against a familiar foe. He has appeared in 49 career games against the Cardinals, more than any other active pitcher.
Signed as a free agent in the offseason, he pitched two hitless innings and struck out two. He threw 33 pitches, 24 for strikes. The only runner against him was Oscar Tavares, who reached on an error by second baseman Jonathan Diaz.
“Things went good,” Dempster said. “Felt like body and arm felt good. Was able to attack the strike zone for the most part. Good first day.”
Red Sox manager John Farrell enjoyed Dempster’s outing.
White Sox 14, Rangers 8 In Surprise, Ariz, Yu Darvish is more at ease in his second spring with the Texas Rangers, and he is still throwing hard.
The Japanese ace, who won 16 games last season as a major league rookie, struck out two while retiring all six White Sox he faced in his first spring start. Chicago then scored 11 runs over the next two innings on the way to a 14-8 victory Tuesday.
“His velocity was up, his stuff was just better,” said new Rangers catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who faced his former team while catching Darvish. “He threw the ball really well and it was very encouraging to see. We talked in the bullpen and talked before the game about what he wanted to accomplish, and he accomplished everything that he wanted to and needed to.”
Pierzynski, who spent his last eight seasons in Chicago before signing a oneyear deal with Texas, had previously worked with the 26-year-old Darvish during an intrasquad game last week and in bullpen sessions.
After the Rangers committed more than $107 million to acquire Darvish, including a guaranteed $56 million, sixyear contract, the pitcher’s every move was chronicled and scrutinized last spring. Plenty of people are still watching, but not to the same extent in this camp.
Marlins 7, Mets 5 In Jupiter, Fla, Giancarlo Stanton homered Tuesday on an 0-2 fastball over the plate, a pitch he’s likely to seldom see this season.
The Miami Marlins slugger hit his first homer of spring training in a 7-5 victory over the New York Mets.
Stanton had 37 homers last year and led the NL in slugging. Because he’s one of only two returning starters from opening day 2012 following an offseason payroll purge, he expects teams to pitch around him a lot.
“With less than two outs, they’re probably going to fool around with me a little bit more,” he said.
Stanton got a pitch he could handle against Hansel Robles. Matt Downs also homered off Robles.
Casey Kotchman hit a grand slam in his first at-bat of spring training against Mets starter Jenrry Mejia. Kotchman had been sidelined for the past week after he ran into a pop-up machine during drills and needed four stitches to close a cut on his left ring finger.
Mejia required 30 pitches to get through his one inning and allowed five runs. The right-hander, battling for a spot on the roster, was making his first appearance of spring training.
Rays 7, Astros 2 In Port Charlotte, Fla, AL Cy Young Award winner David Price and Evan Longoria had brief, but satisfying spring debuts for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Price pitched one scoreless inning and escaped injury when a groundball glanced off his left wrist, while Longoria successfully tested his surgically-repaired left hamstring on the base paths and had a RBI single during Tuesday’s rain-shortened 7-2 victory over a Houston Astros split-squad.
Both players felt good about the way they performed.
“Its’ just getting back in a competitive mind-set. That’s the first real competitive thing I’ve done since last year that really meant something,” said Price, who went 20-5 with a 2.56 ERA in 31 starts in 2012 to edge Justin Verlander in the closest Cy Young balloting ever.
“I know this doesn’t mean a whole lot, but to me it does,” the 27-year-old lefthander added. “I told (pitching coach Jim Hickey), it starts today. One scoreless inning, I’m happy with that.”
Longoria missed 85 games last season after partially tearing his hamstring sliding into second base on April 30. The Rays went 41-44 during his absence, compared to 47-27 in the career-low 74 games he started at either third base or as the designated hitter.
Angels 7, Diamondbacks 7 In Tempe, Ariz, Josh Hamilton wants to turn over a new leaf with his new team. The free-swinging slugger is planning to practice better plate discipline in his first spring with the Los Angeles Angels.
Hamilton then swung at the first pitch he faced in an Angels uniform Tuesday, grounding out to short in Los Angeles’ 77, nine-inning tie with an Arizona Diamondbacks split squad.
The $125 million slugger went 0 for 3 in his Los Angeles debut. He also ran out of unbroken bats in the process, forcing him to use teammate Mark Trumbo’s lumber in the fifth inning for his second flyout.
Former major-league slugger Manny Ramirez has a verbal agreement to sign with the EDA Rhinos of the China Professional League, according to EDINBURGH, Feb 27, (AFP): New Zealand-born Scotland wing Sean Maitland believes last week’s Six Nations win over Ireland could be the start of a new era for a side under the caretaker charge of Australian coach Scott Johnson.
Sunday’s gutsy 12-8 win at Murrayfield on Sunday followed a victory over Italy and saw Scotland enjoying back-to-back Six Nations successes for the first time since 2001.
It also left Scotland level on four points with second-placed Wales in the table, and just two behind leaders England.
“It’s a pretty great feeling,” said Maitland, drafted in by Johnson this season. “This is just the start for our team.”
Scotland’s defeat of Ireland was a triumph of team spirit, with the Irish dominating more than 70 percent and territory and scoring the only try of the match through wing Craig Gilroy.
But they failed to kill the game off and Scotland, from 8-0 down early in the second half, saw their forwards provide a platform for scrum-half Greig Laidlaw to kick them into a winning position with four penalties.
Ireland did have one final chance to salvage a win but with 80 minutes up and in the last play of the game, debutant centre Luke Marshall knocked in sight of Scotland’s try-line.
“I was really scared,” said Maitland. “I thought they were going to get in for a try. But to hold out and show our courage on defence was very pleasing.
“It just shows the character of the men in this side.”
Meanwhile Scotland prop Ryan Grant hailed Johnson’s decision to move Laidlaw back to his more familiar position of scrum-half.
Laidlaw has been playing at fly-half for much of the season with club side Edinburgh but, following the Test retirement of former Scotland No 9 Mike Blair, Johnson installed him at scrumhalf.
And the way Laidlaw, the nephew of Scotland scrum-half great Roy Laidlaw, directed his pack as well as dictating play when his side did get their hands on the ball, suggested Johnson had made a smart call.
“Greig is a class, class player. He is great with the boot and a great marshal of the pack,” said Grant.
Conor O’Shea insisted Tuesday he had no immediate interest in becoming the next coach of Ireland as speculation surrounding the future of current boss Declan Kidney intensified.
Kidney, in charge of Ireland since 2008, is out of contract at the end of the season and the team’s inconsistent form since he oversaw their 2009 Grand Slam, as exemplified by Sunday’s 12-8 loss to Scotland in the Six Nations, could count against him.
Former Ireland full-back O’Shea is currently director of rugby at English champions Harlequins and would appear to be the man best placed to succeed Kidney should a vacancy arise.
But the 42-year-old O’Shea signalled his commitment to the London club by announcing he would be seeing out a contract that runs until 2014.
“I’m contracted to Harlequins until the end of the 2013-14 season. I will be honouring that commitment and hopefully continuing beyond it,” O’Shea said.
Four years ago Kidney guided Ireland to their first Grand Slam of the Six Nations era and only their second in history.
However, performances since then have been erratic with the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand seeing them beat Australia in the pool phase only to lose to Wales in the quarter-finals.
Ireland started this season’s Six Nations in fine style with a win away to defending champions Wales. That was followed by a 12-6 loss to England in Dublin, in itself no great disgrace against a side bidding for a Grand Slam.
Sunday’s reverse at Murrayfield was something else, though, with Ireland dominating possession and territory yet somehow contriving to lose despite scoring the only try of the match.
Injuries and suspension robbed Ireland of seven first-choice players in Edinburgh but, significantly, Kidney entrusted goalkicking duties at Murrayfield to debutant fly-half Paddy Jackson, in for the sidelined Jonathan Sexton, even though the 21-year-old is not the first-choice kicker for his province, Ulster.
Jackson landed just one of four goalkicks, spurning eight points in all — a key number in a narrow defeat — and for much of the match Ireland did not have a recognised goalkicker on the field.