Today, I (Terry) officially turn 25, and what a day it has been, and hopefully will continue to be. I had a delicious breakfast, got a new bike for my birthday (so I can continue to bike to work like Tyler Clippard), and best of all, my hometown team, Detroit Tigers, are playing the Shark and the Washington Nationals.
At least in terms of spring training, the teams are pretty evenly matched, tying their first matchup 5-5. Ignore the fact that the Nats lost 6-3 in their second matchup and the teams are still tied (also, ignore the fact that the Nats are down 9-6 right now...)! The Shark, however, manages to thrive against Tigers. Last time he singled against Tigers ace, Justin Verlander. Today, he singled against their next best pitcher, Doug Fister, and added an RBI to boot. He also added a single 6th to bump his average to .250.
His RBI was the Shark's first "official" RBI of the spring (you will recall that when he drove a run before, the game was called...) and his 5th hit. The most intriguing part of this Spring, however, is that he has cut way down on his strikeouts, and increased his walks. Already this spring, the Shark has walked 5 times, compared to only 6 walks. Considering that last season, Bernadina walked 22 times, compared to 63 Ks, we see that his Sharksight is honed in.
Batting averages matter little in Spring Training. Jose Reyes batted only .281 in Spring Training last year, then led the NL in batting during the regular season, and had a remarkably similar BB/K rate (3/3). I'm not saying that the Shark will definitely lead the league in batting this season, but he probably will.
Other News:
There were several reports of Shark chants while Bernadina was batting during yesterday's game. Tyler and I reacted the same way, repeating "no way" until someone with sense slapped us back into reality hours later. Here are some of the tweets about the awe-inspiring occurance.
Jawsome.
More to come.
Jaws theme should be his walk-up music, no doubt
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