Rauuuuul!

Just a little midday update. I hope to add more of these as we go along and more newsworthy notes become available. First up is a Raul Ibanez update. After a first half struggle, that clearly was the result of the recovery process due to offseason abdominal surgery after the 2009 season, Ibanez hit .309 in the second half of 2010. Fully healed, and sporting a Jayson Werth-esque, Ibanez is going into 2011, the final year of his 3 year, 31.5 million dollar contract, with his eye on consistency. In an interview with Jim Salisbury over at csnphilly.com, Ibanez revealed that he had to alter his off season work out regimine. Instead of going to Miami for the offseason, Ibanez spent his offseason in South Jersey. Snow meet Raul. Raul this is Snow. Yes, Ibanez got the luxury of shoveling snow and sledding for the first time. He did also spend most of his off season training with Steve Saunders. Saunders trains other athletes in the area, but Ibanez spent his sessions focusing in on his core muscles and legs. I think, barring injury, Ibanez could bat fifth behind Howard on a regular basis. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Ibanez be a big time producer in 2011 to the tune of a .285+ batting average, 25+ homeruns, and 90+ RBIs. Anything past that would be gravy.

*****

Spring Training Baseball

To readers of this site who have the YES Network available to them, they are advertising that the Phillies-Yankees exhibition game this Saturday at 1 PM will be televised on the YES  Network. MLB Network is also televising Spring Training games and while they don’t have the Phillies-Yankees game specifically named as of the time of this post, they do have time blocked off on Saturday in the same time slot. So make sure to check both YES or MLB networks for availability.

A short but sweet one for today to catch up. 39 days to go and word that Cliff Lee has a mild strain going into Spring Training. While the Delaware Valley panicked, Ruben Amaro and the Phillies medical staff jumped into action to quell any worries. They shut him down for a week as a precaution and is now listed as 100%. He should resume pitching activities today or tomorrow and hopefully be ready for “A” game status by the end of this week or the middle of next week. So fear not Phillies faithful,no reason to go to DEFCOM 5 yet.

I must start today’s (or yesterday’s rather) post with an apology. Due to my parental responsibilities, the fact that place I was had no WiFi connections available, and the fact that my cell has very limited internet capabilities, I could not do yesterday’s post. I hope to atleast remedy the cell phone issue so that I can atleast make updates on the fly in the future. So with out further delay, a belated CtOD: 40 Days edition.

(more…)