Spring Fever Baseball

The Red Sox better mail me my season tickets soon or I’ll begin to panic and start stalking them. I even checked my online bank register the other day to make sure the check I mailed in cleared last December. Season tickets are now my second worst non-renewal nightmare, up there with the falling-off-the-cliff and underwear-in-the-highschool-hallway dreams.. The first nightmare of non-renewal will always be my mooring permits from the Town of Barnstable.

My first game will be April 8 vs. the Rangers. Something tells me after this winter that I will not be wearing my “Thaw Ted” t-shirt and shorts that Tuesday evening but will probably have more layers of wool going on than a Yukon prospector.

So, randomly, here’s the first bright sign of spring: one of my favorite Cotuit Kettleers blew everyone away during a recent Red Sox spring season game down in Jupiter, Florida.   I’m talking Deven Marrero, the Arizona State phenomenon my Cotuit baseball buddies and I adopted as most-likely-to-succeed in the 2010  championship season when he hit .306 as a freshman, returning the next year to play 12 games in the 2011 season and hit .346.  The guy is an incredible fielder.

Gordon Edes wrote last week that Marrero is the Red Sox rookie to watch this year and a strong candidate for the Sox’s future shortstop:

“The beauty of spring training is that you never know when or where the next coming-out party will be, and who will emerge from the shadows to declare themselves a major leaguer-in-waiting.

Last spring it was outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., grabbing us with the virtuosity of his all-around play in Fort Myers. In 2005, it was a cocky Class A reliever named Jonathan Papelbon, who responded to a teammate being hit by a pitch in Fort Lauderdale by buzzing slugger Sammy Sosa with a high, hard one.

And Thursday afternoon here in Roger Dean Stadium, with the Red Sox leaving nearly all of their regulars back in Fort Myers, 23-year-old shortstop Deven Marrero, who went to high school about 70 minutes away from here (American Heritage School in Plantation), became the latest Red Sox rookie to seize his moment.

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AP Photo/Mike JanesShortstop Devin Marrero (above, coaching first base in a spring training game last year) flashed impressive defensive ability against the Marlins.

Marrero did so with a fielding exhibition worthy of Cirque du Soleil, one in which he displayed spectacular range diving for a ball up the middle, showed off his aerodynamic capacity while completing a double play and handled everything else hit his way with soft hands and a strong arm.

“My gosh, he put on a display defensively,” manager John Farrell said after a scoreless game between the Sox and Miami Marlins that was shortened to 7 2/3 innings by a late-afternoon deluge.

Which brings me to this year’s Kettleer’s roster which is live on the team site.  I’ll get off my butt and do the usual OCD Google-Baseball America scouting report but past experience tells me that a good number of these names won’t make it to Cotuit due to the usual Team USA/College World Series conflicts. It is always nice to see returning players and this year’s squad had four alumni from last summer’s championship team.

Author: David Churbuck

Cape Codder with an itch to write View all posts by David Churbuck