[OOTPRealTime]

[B]Spring Training Game #7 - 3/7/14 - vs. San Diego Padres[b]

It’s cut day. We’ll have four total cuts to get us down to our 25-man roster that we’ll be bringing with us to start the season in Cincinnati. This first cut will be mainly the non-roster invitees that helped out catching bullpens and used as extra bodies in intrasquad games. There won’t be any earth shattering news coming from today. Mike and I will meet immediately following the game today to discuss and finalize these and he’ll then call them each into his office to have a conversation with them. Today, Michael Wacha will get the start and Mike has decided to make it a “back up” day where most of the backups will play the entire game. This gives the every day guys a break - even though they just had a day off - but let’s us get a better look at some of these players that we haven’t seen much of. The ones trying to avoid getting sent to minor league camp.

LINEUPS

CARDINALS (4-2)
1. Thomas Pham, CF
2. Juan Lagares, LF
3. Matt Carpenter, 1B (L)
4. Matt Adams, DH (L)
5. Jermaine Curtis, 3B
6. Daniel Descalso, 2B (L)
7. Pete Kozma, SS
8. Audry Perez, C
9. Shane Robinson, RF

MM: We’ll get some of our guys playing time that haven’t had much of it to this point - and give our vets a bit of an extended rest as we embark on the next stage of the spring training schedule. This is a tough day because I’ll be cutting people after the game. I think most of these guys see it coming - but that doesn’t make it any easier. Hopefully Michael (Wacha) can go out there and put on a good show - he’ll be limited to 60 pitches today.

PADRES
1. Everth Cabrera, SS (S)
2. Chase Headley, 3B (S)
3. Yasmani Grandal, C (S)
4. Carlos Quentin, RF
5. Will Venable, LF (L)
6. James Darnell, DH
7. Jason Hagerty, 1B (S)
8. Everett Williams, CF (L)
9. Logan Forsythe, 2B

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Not a very exciting one, though based on the discrepancies in the number of starters playing, we were happy only to lose this one 2-1 - with a good chance to have won it. Michael Wacha wasn’t too sharp today. He walked three batters and gave up a couple of hits in (1 ER) in 3.0 IP today. Eduardo Sanchez also struggled. Rafael Dolis and once again, Jhan Marinez were good. Marinez is really making a case for himself to make the team. The bats could only muster six hits (tied with them) and one run. Audry Perez was able to get a couple of those hits. Again, we were healthy!

CUT DAY #1

After some deliberation, we decided to send back the following players to minor-league camp to get them some work:

RHP Seth Maness
RHP Keith Butler
C Cody Stanley
C Travis Tartamella
C Juan Castillo
C Casey Rasmus
OF Xavier Scruggs
IF Greg Garcia
SS Jake Lemmerman
OF Mike O’Neill
OF Stephen Piscotty
OF James Ramsey

That means we have 18 (healthy) arms in camp right now. We’ll be will getting that down to 12 eventually. We have four (4) catchers - only two will go north with us (most likely the Molina bros.) and 17 non-catcher position players. We’ll be getting that down to 11.

We have 15 games left to make those tough decisions.

@KenRosenhaus Heard that Kendrys Morales is ready to sign. Hearing it’s narrowed down to SEA, OAK and BAL. Can DH in AL. No NL teams in mix.