In Pittsburgh’s camp it looks like Jack Taschner will open the season with the Pirates as Jason Jaramillo is still battling for the back up catcher spot. We might see Jaramillo with Indianapolis if he is unsuccessful.
Starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco has all but secured a bus trip down to Columbus as his spring outting took a familiar spin with a few solid innings followed by an avalanche of poor control and frustration. I feel safe saying we will see him at CCP this summer in a Clippers uniform.
Jason Donald has also been relegated to AAA Columbus but catcher Lou Marson looks to have won the starting job in Cleveland, at least until Carlos Santana gets the call up.
Michael Taylor was recently sent to the Oakland A’s minor league camp.
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
Pittsburgh must be in dire straights if they need Taschner on their big league roster.
No real surprise on Carrasco and Donald for entirely different reasons. I think Carrasco might end up stalling out as a AAAA pitcher. I know he’s young, but a few years ago everyone thought at worst he was going to be a #2 in the majors, and now it’s looking like he’ll be a #4 at best. It wouldn’t be the first time someone peaked too early. Donald’s a nice player, but if he can’t stick as a utility guy at this point in his career, he might never make it.
I think they’re showcasing Marson to see if someone else will give up a good prospect for him. It would be a shame if he spent the prime of his career backing up Carlos Santana. I think Marson is good enough to start somewhere, but he’s not going to start over Santana.
Taylor really struggled this spring, but he’ll be back.
Gary Majewski and Gustavo Chacin were reassigned to the Astros minor league camp.
It looks like Rodrigo Lopez has pitched his way into the starting rotation for the Arizona Diamondbacks. His spring stats are:
5 Games; 15 1/3 IP; 14 H; 3 BB; 12 SO; 4 ER; 1 HR allowed; 2.35 ERA. Record: 1-0.
JJ Furmaniak was re-assigned by the Rays last Thursday; no word on Durham-or-Montgomery.
I’m thinking Durham.. hopefully we get a chance to see him again.
cue Michael Sembello…
Just read an article from the Houston Chronicle that was posted in the Hog Blog. The article is a must read regarding David Newhan. Here’s the link followed by the article:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bb/6927401.html
Justice: Ex-Astro Newhan Counts Blessings
That David Newhan survived the accident is almost a miracle, depending on your definition of miracle. That he’s fully recovered and hoping to play major league baseball again is nearly beyond comprehension.
“I’m very blessed,” he said from his home in Southern California. “There’s really no explanation.”
He pauses and savors the thought. He has spent hours thinking about how lucky he is to be able to hold his kids, take walks, drive his car and do things so many of us take for granted.
“I would like to use this incident to glorify God,” Newhan added.
When he finishes telling his story, you’ll understand there’s no other explanation for why he’s still alive.
Newhan felt the crunch in his neck after he’d tumbled off his surfboard and as his head hit the sand that day last fall. As his body went limp and he lay facedown in the Pacific Ocean, he did the kind of thing an athlete sometimes won’t do.
He understood that for those few seconds his life was not in his hands, that he had lost control. That he needed help.
“Jesus, please let me move my arms and legs,” he remembered thinking.
He would find out hours later he had broken three bones in his C2 vertebrae, an injury similar to the one that left Christopher Reeve paralyzed, similar to others that kill instantly.
“I jumped headfirst off the board,” Newhan said. “I figured I was in deep enough water. It’s where I surf a lot and feel like I know the ground.”
If it’s a near-miracle he lived, it’s almost equally amazing he didn’t sever his spinal core over the next few hours as he walked home with his surfboard, showered and finally summoned medical assistance.
“It could have shifted at any time,” he said. “I would have died. There’s just no reason it didn’t move.”
Only as Newhan was undergoing a CT scan and saw a technician excitedly pointing at the screen did he begin to understand the magnitude of what had happened.
He spent the night in the hospital, and the next morning his wife, Karen, casually asked a nurse about this kind of injury. Doctors had not told David and Karen the whole story at that point.
“Or maybe I didn’t listen,” David said. “I heard the word ‘fracture.’ I didn’t hear everything they said.”
That nurse gave Karen a strange look and said, “Do you know what they call this injury? Your husband suffered a ‘hangman’s break.’ ”
‘I’m lucky not to be dead’
This isn’t a case of someone finding God only when cornered. Newhan has long been a man of faith, a man who has tried to see God’s plan in the good days and bad.
He’s part of a Bible study group near his home that includes Geoff Blum, Morgan Ensberg, Geoff Geary and other baseball players he has met along the way.
“This certainly has been a strengthening of my faith,” Newhan said. “It’s something you try and figure out. There’s no way to explain why I’m not Christopher Reeve, or worse. It’s basically the same injury. My breaks were about 4 mm lower, where the vertebra is a little wider. That may be why I didn’t sever the spinal cord. The doctor said I’m lucky not to be dead.”
He wore a brace for a few weeks, then underwent a couple of months of therapy. Now he’s running, throwing and hitting again, hoping against hope a major league team could use some help at second base.
Or shortstop. Or third base. Or in the outfield. He has done a little bit of everything these last 14 years. He’s one of those guys who teammates and managers love because of his versatility and energy.
Also his attitude. His dad, Ross, is a Hall of Fame baseball writer, and David grew up close enough to the game to understand how things work. From his first day in the minors, he let anyone and everyone know that any day he could get paid for playing baseball was a pretty good day.
That attitude has survived a long road.
Newhan, 36, has been released, traded and dealt with every measure of disappointment. He has been with nine organizations, spent all or parts of 14 years in the minor leagues, including nine at Class AAA.
He has gotten more than 250 big-league at-bats just once despite a .253 career average. He played the 2008 season with the Astros and was in spring training with them last year.
Still longs to play ball
There’s a point where he will decide he has had enough, that it’s time to use that Pepperdine business degree and become a full-time husband and father. But he’s not there yet.
“I’d still like to play,” he said. “Or I’d like to be in the game in some capacity. It’s what I know. It’s where my passion is. It has been my whole life.”
If Newhan does catch on with another team, he’ll have a little bit different perspective.
“I’ll probably spend the rest of my life wondering why I was blessed this way,” he said. “There was an angel looking out for me.”
I did see that yesterday. Newhan was the first and only player to hit the OINK sign with a HR ball. Prayers for his continued recovery.
Thanks for posting this. I was luke-warm on Newhan when he took over for the pharmacologically challenged Ozuna–but I warmed as I learned of his father’s covering the Angels (my childhood team). Really started liking him when he was cool to my kids when they met him.
Late spring training deals seem to be the norm with the Phillies. Today they signed pitchers Josh Fogg and Ty Taubenheim to minor league contracts.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100331&content_id=9031524¬ebook_id=9031306&vkey=notebook_phi&fext=.jsp&c_id=phi&partnerId=rss_phi
Taubenheim was 7-9 3.65 with the Indianapolis Indians in 2009. He is 27. Fogg was 0-2 3.75 with the Rockies in ’09 and has a 62-69 5.03 career big league record. He was also 3-1 with Colorado Springs in the PCL last year. He’s 33.
There’s another installment of that Baseball America blog dated March 31st. Transactions of interest include:
White Sox released T.J. Bohn.
Dodgers released Brandon Watson.
Mets released Val Pascucci.
And we all were hoping for Pascucci to come back to CCP so we could boo him even more for his 2008 performance.