HI NOTES: Home Opener Finally? Brock Bond Finally?

Opening Day
photo by hypersapiens flickr.com

At 4:00 yesterday afternoon, when the wind was blowing through me like an ice cold pachyderm, I was glad the home opener was moved to today:  37 degrees, much calmer winds at around 10-13 mph, partly cloudy.  Still much colder than the average baseball fan would choose for a home opener, but Mizzou Baseball fans are not your average baseball fans.

♦ Baseball Tuesday Postponed: Double Header On Tap For Wednesday (mutigers.com)

The Tigers will now play a doubleheader with the Eagles beginning at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Taylor Stadium. Each game will be just seven innings...

♦ Missouri baseball team looking for answers at home (Columbia Missourian)

“Right now we’re like a bunch of Legos, and the pieces aren’t quite meshing,” Miles said. “That’s the best way to describe it. We have very good building blocks except we can’t quite fit them together.”
. . .
“Playing at home is the best cure that we can have right now,” Jamieson said. “Whatever advantage we can gain, we need to take it.”...

♦ And a note about bizarre statistics:  On Monday the Tigers' RPI ranking on BoydsWorld.com was 288th.  On Tuesday, without playing any games, MU's RPI ranking rose to 74th.  Maybe RPIs are not very reliable this early int he season.

MIZZOU BASEBALL SPRING TRAINING

♦ Brock Bond making his case for Giants' roster (McCovey Chronicles)

I always figured that Bond looked like Conor Gillaspie wearing cement shoes on defense, and that's why he's never been up in the majors. But if he's competent, or even better, what in the heck has taken so long? Has it been the lack of power? Because Emmanuel Burriss got over 300 plate appearances over the last two seasons, and he had two extra-base hits. That isn't one of those stupid jokes where hyperbole is used for comedic effect. Burriss had two extra-base hits. So if the Giants were putting up with a player like that, why not add a little OBP? ...

♦ And more Bond quotes from MercuryNews.com:

Brock Bond is in line for plenty of time while Marco Scutaro is gone, and he continues to take advantage. Bond had two more hits today to improve to 6 for 12 this spring, and he also had a pretty slick day on defense. Bond took a poor feed from Kensuke Tanaka and made a twisting throw for a double play. Later, he threw Dewayne Wise out at second when the speedy outfielder tried to take an extra bag on a flare to center that bounced off a diving Gary Brown’s glove...