It’s that time of year again when the weather breaks and the boys of summer are back. This is the first year of the Ryne Sandberg regime and it looks to be lacking one thing so far, OFFENSE! Yes it’s early, but after an offseason of the Marlon Byrd phenomenon, we really didn’t come into this year with the greatest of expectations. However, some of us thought that a healthy Ryan Howard would bolster this team to competition, but as of now his stat line ( .182 BA, 0 HR and 9 K’s) in 22 AB’s is far from stellar. This is just one of the many storylines listed below for which I am concerned:
**Cole Hamels – another mysterious arm injury and throwing fatigue definitely does not sound promising.
**Jimmy Rollins—batting .133 so far with 2 hits in 15 AB’s…shocking
**Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez—the mysterious million dollar Cuban sensation that has been rocked so far, showing as much control as “Wild Thing” Rick Vaughn before the glasses.
**Dominic Brown—outfield skills still in question, but after a diminished second half offensively, starting out the spring at .091 is not helping anyone’s confidence.
**John Mayberry Jr.—tell me why he is still on the team????
**Bobby Abreu—our signed Left handed hitting specialist is hitting a fantastic .150 so far and is moving around as well as John Kruk from 1st to 3rd.
As you can see, there are a lot of issues with this, which have just culminated during the first week of spring training. Can they turn it around? Anything is possible. However, if past history is an indictment on how this season plays out, we are in for a long summer!
Reported By: Tony Cutillo
***As always, your comments and responses are welcomed and appreciated…you can also follow me @TCutillo23…
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