To get acclimated to the cold once again, my buddy Matt, my dad and I drove to the top of Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains Sunday evening. From sand and cacti to snow and pine trees in just under an hour -- can't say I've seen anything like it.
Since it was my last day here, I actually treated it like a vacation, so here are some brief parting shots.
PITCHING*Javier Vazquez gave up a homer to Chris Burke to begin his spring training debut, and that set the tone from there. Even the outs were hit hard.
*Wes Whisler didn't miss a bat until he struck out Jeff Salazar on his last pitch -- although I missed one pitch when people in front of us were getting beers. Either way, he wasn't fooling anybody, either.
*Tomo Ohka provided two innings of solid, uneventful relief, which is a welcome change.
*Scott Linebrink pumped a high fastball past Trot Nixon for his only strikeout. It's a shame Tucson Electric Park doesn't have radar guns, because I couldn't tell if that's a pitch Linebrink can use, or if Nixon is pretty much done.
HITTING*Jason Bourgeois is trying to make the claim that he can as effective as Pablo Ozuna -- and he did just that by going 4-for-4, all singles, two of them infield ones.
*Carlos Quentin struck out looking twice. The second one looked highly dubious, but backwards Ks are probably the most dangerous outcome for somebody in Quentin's position to repeat.
*Jim Thome had a double and a sacrifice fly, but more importantly, he's starting to get more balls in the air, which is crucial for him. He'd been chopping most pitches into the ground up to this point.
*Jeff Cox was ultra-cautious with waving home runners from third. Probably smart for a spring training game, but his performance today was the antithesis of Joey Cora.
FIELDING*Joe Crede airmailed another throw, this time after a mildly difficult backhanded play down the third-base line. It's the second time he's done that this spring. He short-armed his next throw, and while it made it to first in time for the out, he doesn't quite look comfortable yet.
*Orlando Cabrera is worrying me a little bit at short. He hasn't botched any easy plays, but he hasn't made any hard ones, either. It's one thing when Alexei Ramirez looks better at short than Cabrera, but Robert Hudson made a couple of tremendous throws from deep in the hole at short, and he didn't even have a name on the back of his jersey.
*Pablo Ozuna looks very comfortable at second base, as though he's played more than 15 games there over the last three years combined.
*Jason Bourgeois should thank the wind for helping him avoid an error in his name. The wind shifted throughout the course of the day, and at one point was blowing strong from left to right. He was turned around on a deep fly ball and failed to haul in what would be a catchable ball in most other conditions.
Today's a heavy travel day, so regular posting may not resume until Tuesday.