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This game will be televised on ESPN, so we can guess there will be nothing revolutionary occurring.
How am I supposed to preview a baseball game when I have to go outside and shovel snow immediately after finishing this post? Life is weird.
As you know if you've been reading my pleading missives the last little while, I've had my fill of spring training baseball. One reason for that is expressed in today's breathless relaying, en masse, by the Orioles beat writers, about the injury status of Trayvon Robinson, who left the game yesterday with some kind of back spasm. He is not starting today, but is available, and "would have played if this was the regular season". What if that statement is actually true? I don't want Robinson to play in the regular season. Nothing against him, you know, just... no. Something has gone wrong if he ends up playing in the regular season.
Being as the Orioles are facing off against the Red Sox today, that means no one who will actually be a starting pitcher to open up the season is going to start the game. That's how Buck Showalter rolls in the waning days of spring training: he won't let any hitters get extra looks against one of his guys. That T.J. McFarland is starting suggests he's probably not going to be the #5 starter, which we all knew before spring training even opened. But he'll still be auditioning for a bullpen spot (not that whether or not he makes the team should be judged based on today's performance) and even when it doesn't count, it feels good to see the Red Sox lose, so let's make that happen today, fellas.
When this game starts to bore you - if you manage to even make it to first pitch before it starts to bore you, which I won't - I suggest you read this article by MLB.com's Brittany Ghiroli, in which Showalter likens Chris Tillman to Norman Bates. That happened.
Graham Godfrey is the Red Sox starter. I'm operating under the assumption that is a real person and not a deep cover federal witness against some kind of shady Colorado mining conglomerate, but you can never be too sure about these things.