Another Week Closer to April

The Phillies wrapped up another week of spring training baseball earlier today with a 5-4 loss to Matt Kata and the Cincinnati Reds. The Phils record now stands at an impressive 11 wins to 5 losses - as I'm sure we all know by now, spring training W's and L's may not mean a damn thing in the long-run, but it's better to be 11-5 than 5-11, right? It sure doesn't hurt anyway. A couple of individual performances stood out today:

• Good to see both Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu back and in the lineup getting hits for the Phils again
• Another hit for Chris Coste as his campaign for the 25th man spot picks up even more steam...
• Chris Roberson and Danny Sandoval also contribute at the plate (each with a hit apiece) as they keep up with Coste and that 25th man competition heats up...
• Unfortunately, Tomas Perez had a hit as well...he's still gotta be considered the Phils favorite to win the job, right? Sad, but true - maybe I'm wrong though (please tell me I'm wrong)...
  
• No homeruns for Ryan Howard? Two strikeouts? I'm not sure what the Phils are waiting for, but a few more disappointing days like this and they should just pull the trigger and cut the guy already...
• Isn't it funny though that, in all honesty, I always find myself a little surprised to see a day go by without a Ryan Howard homer? That seems like a very good sign for a fun season ahead to me...
• Bobby Scales...still looking for spring hit numero uno (0-1 today)
• Julio Santana did not impress though Arthur Rhodes and Tom Gordon both did alright for themselves
  
• The aforementioned Matt Kata pinch ran for Scott Hatteberg in the 5th today for the Reds and scored a run...good for him
• Aaron Harang was impressive for Cincy today...he really isn't all that bad a pitcher (coming off a successful 2005, plus a Baseball Reference sim score very close to Jon Lieber through their respective Age-27 seasons), but it must be a little disheartening for Reds fans to know that Harang will be their Opening Day starter.
• Young Reds 3B Edwin Encarnacion (who I saw put on a show along with Adam Dunn during batting practice before a Reds-Nats game at RFK last August) continues to impress this spring - he is just one name to remember (and near the bottom of this list by the way) when keeping tabs on the onslaught of potentially great third basemen about to reach the majors: Andy Marte, Alex Gordon, Brandon Wood (SS now, 3B later?), Ryan Zimmerman, Andy LaRoche, and, my personal favorite and the other young 3B having a huge spring, Ian Stewart. Add all of those guys to the list of relatively young (all 30 and younger at this moment...I didn't look it all up, but I think I'm right) major league talent at third (Alex Rodriguez, Eric Chavez, Adrian Beltre, Hank Blalock, Miguel Cabrera, David Wright, Morgan Ensberg, Scott Rolen, Aramis Ramirez, Chad Tracy) and we could be looking at a golden age of third basemen in the bigs soon.

I think I was writing about the Phillies for a while there, but it appears I've been sidetracked - it's not my fault really, after all it's spring training for those who write about the Phillies too, you know. I wanted to throw David Bell's name to the list of established 3B stars to make sure people still read that long non-Phillies bullet point, but I decided to spare you good folks the sight of seeing his name up with the A-Rod's, Cabrera's, and Wright's of the world - it may have caused more emotional stress than I'd be willing to have on my conscience. I'm quite a sensitive soul like that, always looking out for my readers...