The rain stayed in the clouds today which was nice because we had practice and the overcast skies provided some decent lighting.

Diamond Notes:

- Even though the set up isn’t the best to get pictures of everyone on the squad, the 2 field split gives a new batch of pitchers on the main field. Today was headlined by Jonathan Sanchez, Todd Wellemeyer, Dan Turpen, Brandon Medders, Henry Sosa, and Craig Whitaker. Sanchy looked good to me. Wellemeyer has a really straight up delivery, almost like he is standing up with locked knees when he brings the ball back. I didn’t take photos of Turpen because I took some the other day but as Baggs noted, it would be fun to have him as a closer someday for obvious reasons. Whitaker kind of has a sidearm delivery, looked pretty good. We all know how valuable Medders was last year so I’ll move on to Sosa.

- I know I’ve said this of a couple other guys, but Henry Sosa is also one of my personal favorites. First off, the guy is one of the nicest people you will ever meet, totally loves playing the game and is always smiling. He absolutely destroyed AA last year going 6-0 with a 2.36 ERA.

I think he realized what it means to continually change your game because before it seemed he was looking for the strikeout, averaging about 1 an inning. It worked in 2007 Augusta where he dominated, but struggled in 2008 San Jose. He cuts his strikeout rate in half this year, pitches to contact, and is back to dominating.

- You may have noticed that I am getting a lot of photos of the same players. There are a couple reasons for this.

1. The way they have the team broken up it is almost impossible to get a legitimate photo of any player designated to field 2.

2. The Panda is the man for photos. You can’t take a picture of him without a huge smile on his face which makes it super easy to get good shots. He also is a “big kid” for lack of a better term. Always having fun making practice fun to watch, like today…

- Pablo wasn’t wearing the X-Ray specs today. He said he had, “Contactas” in. He probably did too because he was dodging jabs from Joe Martinez like Sugar Ray during warm ups, then doing some one handed soft toss with Bam Bam, and finally dueling it out at 3B with coach Stanley (I think it was him) hitting him some fungo grounders.

The duel at 3B was the best. He would yell out to the coach, “You got nothing! Come on bring it!” explaining that he’s going to catch whatever he’s got. He did pretty much catch everything. Which leads me to this question…Did you know Pandas CAN jump? Don’t believe everything you read from a source with the name “wiki” in the title (the second part is probably true though). He robbed a double down the line with his aerial catch. It’s gotta be the cleats?

- We didn’t stay until practice closed today, but I did see Mark DeRosa doing some tee work behind the cage. Hopefully that wrist is good to go.

- Tomorrow’s an off day, but I might throw something up to help those of you traveling out here. I remember what it’s like looking for good insider info when I used to live in CA and had a hard time finding it. Oh yeah, GO USA!!!! Pavs for MVP.

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