Early on, I thought Augie Ojeda and Darwin Barney were in a fair fight for back-up, but a quick glance at the Spring numbers tells me it's not.
Young Darwin is winning on at-bats alone with 30 to Ojeda's 8, so Mr. Quade musta decided awhile back that Ojeda's out of the picture here.
Or that could mean Augie's a known quantity and Quade's using Spring correctly to take a longer look at Barney.
But every year, I'm always concerned with who backs up Aramis.
Because Aramis always gets hurt.
So probably that would be Jeff Baker, who will split time at 2nd with Blake DeWitt, who seems to have lost his stroke with just 6 hits in 35 at-bats, so maybe Baker sees more time at 2nd than DeWitt unless Aramis gets hurt and he has to go over there. Meanwhile at short, I'm pretty sure this is still Starlin Castro's job even if he commits 100 errors, but in case he does go wonky there Barney's got the good glove so he'd probably go to short and Starlin to 2nd which would be bad news for Baker and DeWitt unless Aramis got hurt.
Now if Castro and Aramis got hurt at the same time then it would be Barney at short, DeWitt at second and Baker at third unless Quade decided to call up Scott Moore, who's had 31 at-bats with 11 hits 3 homers and 8 RBIs this Spring. It's also possible that Scott Moore is this year's Tyler Colvin and somehow actually makes the team instead of Barney or even DeWitt.
Okay, out of breath and I gotta run.
Happy St. Patrick's Day a day late.
Oh last thing.
We used to call him "Saladbar".
Ex-Cub third baseman and hugely important pickup back in '89 playoff push (see his numbers on the back of the baseball card below) Luis Salazar got hit in the face with a line drive and had to have his eye removed.
Just the worst.
Anyway, Luis, here's hoping everything turns out the best it can for you, and you continue your baseball career.
