Thoughts for a Thursday

How did CC do in his second outing of the spring today?

Let's just say he was on a 50-pitch limit for the day, pitched three innings in the game then went out to the bullpen to pitch the 22 pitches he didn't get to throw against the competition.

In other words, three up-three down for three innings. Twenty-eight pitches to 9 batters.

So, that's looking a lot better.

And that offense that put up one hit - a ninth inning hit at that - on Wednesday, put 11 runs on the board today.

Grady Sizemore tripled and doubled in three plate appearances. Franklin Gutierrez was 3 for 4 and Ben Francisco continued his hot spring, going 4 for 4 with 2 RBIs. Andy Marte was 2 for 5, which means he actually got a hit in two straight games.

Aaron Fultz pitched another inning - and gave up another run. Raffie Perez had an awful day on the mound, giving up 4 runs on 6 hits in an inning. Scott Elarton, on the other hand, went 1 1/3 scoreless innings.

That was today. Yesterday was another story.

Tribe closer Joe Borowski got bombed again yesterday, the second time in two outings this spring. Borowski gave up 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk.

Still, as is mentioned on Tribe Tracker today, Eric Wedge liked what he saw from his closer

"[Borowski] had some good action on the baseball. I liked the way the baseball came out of his hand."

The Braves seemed to like the way it came out of his hand too. And I'm guessing they also were pretty happy about the way the ball came off their bats.

Masa Kobayashi also gave up a solo blast, hit a batter and walked one before calming down to get out of his one inning.

Again, Wedge saw a bright side.

"I liked how he worked his way out of it."

Tribe Tracker's Joey Marona had this observation, which to me shows the ridiculousness of the press scrutiny Kobayashi is getting just for being a Japanese player playing in the U.S.

It was amusing to see the five Japanese journalists sitting to the left of me in the press box at Chain of Lakes to stand up, as if on cue and in perfect unison, and exit the second after Masa Kobayashi recorded his final out of the sixth inning.

Seems like A.) the Japanese would be over their fascination with Japanese players playing in the U.S by now and B .) it would be awfully difficult to be under that sort of microscope. It's like involuntarily being the subject of a so-called reality TV show.

And, from MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince today, it appears the Tribe's batting order is in for a bit of a shuffle this year, with Asdrubal Cabrera not likely to hit in the No. 2 hole, leaving the question - who will? Depending on the answer much of the rest of the order will likely undergo a reshuffling as well.