Open Thread: March 6th Camp Notes

Today wasn’t a good day for the ol’ Grapefruit League pythag record. The Pirates walloped the Yankees pretty good. Bryan Mitchell started and allowed four runs on six hits and no walks in 2.1 innings. He struck out two. Jordan Montgomery allowed two runs in his two innings while Jon Niese chucked a scoreless frame in his spring debut. Evan Rutckyj took one on the chin. He allowed six runs and didn’t record an out.

Not a whole lot happened offensively. Both Jorge Mateo and Aaron Hicks had would be home runs knocked down by the wind. Hicks at least got a double off the wall out of it. Mateo’s well-struck fly ball turned into an out. Aaron Judge had a single and struck out for only the third time this spring. He’s batted 21 times so far. That’s a 14.3% strikeout rate. Hopefully that sticks. Here are the box score and video highlights, and here is the rest of the day’s notes from Tampa:

• Matt Holliday took some ground balls at first base today. He played a few games at first for the Cardinals last season, so it makes sense for the Yankees to have him work there. Just in case, you know? I wonder if we’ll see Holliday play a game at first this spring. Or in left field, for that matter. [YES Network]
• Mason Williams resumed hitting over the weekend and light running today. He’s been out since the start of camp with left patella inflammation. “I feel good right now, but we’ll see how it goes as I get going,” he said. [Lou DiPietro]
• Kyle Higashioka has been learning Japanese this spring. His father’s family is from Japan and they’ve been pushing him to learn the language. Added bonus: it helps him with Masahiro Tanaka. “I thought it could be beneficial for the Yankees to have a catcher who speaks Japanese,” he said. [Billy Witz]
• CC Sabathia is scheduled to make his first spring start tomorrow afternoon. I’m hoping Justus Sheffield will pitch too. We’ll see. That’s a home game against the Rays. It’ll be on YES and MLB.tv.

Here is tonight’s open thread. This afternoon’s game won’t be replayed anywhere, though I’m not sure why you’d want to sit through that again anyway. Today’s game was my “I’m ready for Spring Training to be over” moment. MLB Network is showing a spring game on tape delay tonight, and later on they’ll have a World Baseball Classic game (Israel vs. Chinese Taipei at 10pm ET). The Knicks, Nets, and (hockey) Rangers are all playing too, and there’s a pair of college basketball games on as well. Talk about those games or anything else here, as long as it’s not politics or religion.