The Joys of Spring
The greatest moment of Spring Training so far was when Julio Garcia walked into the locker room on March 12th, the whole locker room stood up to applaud. Julio had suffered a torn flexor tendon back in May 2041 and was expected to be out until late 2042 but thanks to our fantastic medical team he is now ready to start throwing. I wanted him to stick to the backfields just doing soft tosses, but he insisted on being involved, so, he’s sitting in the bullpen on a strict no leverage order and a 5-pitch limit for the rest of Spring. He’ll head for Albuquerque then for a proper rehab stint. Another bit of good medical news is that Kohuru Haukea is responding well too to treatment for his elbow ligament reconstruction surgery, the latest report from the medical staff is that he could well be back on a rehab stint by the end of April.
On the field Spring Training has gone well too, the first two weeks have seen 61 in camp and the Aviators won five games with mainly minor league rosters. A few have caught the eye, but now the first cuts have been made and there are just 34 left in camp, including the severely restricted Garcia. The position battles are now about to start in real earnest. Hedde Aalbers and Jim Gouzzie will vie for the starting SS role, Aalbers though hasn’t done too well in his 23 PA so far, a .150 average is a bit disappointing while Gouzzie only has 5 PA currently, but owns a .600 average. Out in right field it’s down to Raul Gasco and Herve Billy competing to break camp with the other regular outfielders. Wally Poole didn’t really get much of a shot, but at 22-yrs-old he’s got plenty of time to prove himself at Triple-A.
The pitching staff? Well, who knows? Anybody still in camp is still in the game, the projected rotation pitchers start throwing in earnest this week and have a fortnight to show they can beat out the challengers. Mathias Lovlien is still in there, so is Adam Simons & Kidanu Cherono. In all probability those three are fighting for one, maybe two rotation spots. Sancho Torres and James Robinson are reduced at the moment to scraping for the long man role, but with everything being so fluid, one or both of them could still break camp with a rotation spot. One thing that seems certain is that Tony Alomar at 32-yrs-old will be back for a third year as the Aviators closer come stopper. If you take a pretty bad 2/3 of an innings against Boise out, he has had a fairly good two weeks. Yann Legrand and Miroslav Tomanek have been making good cases for being the setup man (men).
The Minor Leaguers are back in Albuquerque, Columbus & Topeka now with stories to tell their buddies, some will be back next year with more chances of a longer camp, some may be looking at Last Chance Saloon; three good men, Ernesto Chavez, Dave Crouch & Xavier Herrero have already been released to make room for the anticipated players returning to Albuquerque from camp in a few weeks’ time. Catcher Brian Best impressed and he’ll be looking for promotion from Topeka while the Double-Play combo of Kinara Cobley & Cesar Lucero who performed so well in the FPL, showed their skills off in spring camp and will now be looking to cement the tag of “the Aviators future middle infielders” in the coming season in Columbus.
Other teams may laugh at our ‘hopefuls’ , ‘possibles’ and ‘futures’, but standards are lower here in Wichita. You don’t need to be a star to get into a 59-win team, you just need heart and effort. Our finances don’t allow us to have a payroll bigger than any other of the BBA teams at the moment, if we can get through these difficult times and turn a profit at long last perhaps we can then look forward to a better class of dregs coming through Wichita.
