CLEARWATER, Fla. – Sometimes it seems as if an alien landed in Philadelphia this offseason and seized control of the local baseball team. No longer will the pitchers simply stretch and throw on the first day of spring training. Now they must also track and log their reps in an attempt to go where no team has gone before.
That, of course, would be the massage parlor because their workload was so heavy the day before that the manager thought it best if they take a day off to relax and recover. Honest, this was all part of the conversation at Gabe Kapler’s spring-training eve news conference at Spectrum Field on Tuesday afternoon.