Another beautiful shot of baseball in Scottsdale Stadium. It was a much nicer day today as far as the weather goes. So naturally, this was the shortest practice since the position players reported to camp. With weather like this, I could have spent the entire day in the park.......but practice was over by 11:55.

After running and stretching, the Giants did full-team pop up/fly ball drills, followed by one round of batting practice with the coaches pitching and that was it. No live pitching and the only infield taken was by those players who took extra groundballs during BP. Because of the short practice and the fact that nothing new really happened, I didn't get many photos.

Omar Vizquel and Rich Aurilia participated and I saw no outward signs of their minor injuries. Once again, I did not see Benjie Molina at all today.

Pop up/flyball practice was interesting. It appears that "he who yells loudest, gets the ball". This seems to be a very verbal team.......lots of talking........lots of chatter. At one point Fred Lewis was in CF and I am not sure who was playing SS. On a "tweener" the SS called for the pop up.....then Fred called for it.......then the SS yelled louder.....then Fred yelled even louder. Finally, the SS gave way, at which point Fred ran under the ball.......and the ball hit him square in the middle of the glove.......and the ball popped out and landed at his feet. He caught a lot of flak from the team for that move. Unfortunately, that is a scene I saw play out FAR too many times a couple of years back when Lewis was playing in the Arizona Fall League. Believe it or not Fred lead his team in errors as a centerfielder that year. That's pretty hard to do......almost without fail an infielder, who handles the ball far more often, will be the team leader in errors. Lewis is still THE worst defensive outfielder I have ever seen. If I was the manager I would make a team rule that Fred gets last priority when calling for pop ups.

The players continue to hit the ball better little by little in each successive batting practice. Even Dave Roberts hit a HR today........a fly ball that made it over the fence to the right of the RF bullpens by inches. Randy Winn was cheering like mad for Roberts' ball to clear the wall. Winn had a couple of HRs himself. The longest drive of the day was a moon shot by Durham that just missed the roof on the patio way beyond the RF bullpens. As a matter of fact, I think that HR might have been the longest so far this spring.

Shawon Dunston pitched a little batting practice and may have been part of the reason why the guys were driving the ball better. Dunston still has a good arm and he was grooving fastballs right down the middle......throwing quite a bit harder than the coaches do. I could kick myself that I didn't get any photos of him throwing.

That's it for today. I think I will take this opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunshine for the rest of the afternoon.