{"id":54346,"date":"2022-04-03T22:23:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T02:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=54346"},"modified":"2022-04-03T22:58:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T02:58:56","slug":"diamondbacks-spring-training-20220403","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/04\/03\/diamondbacks-spring-training-20220403\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks Spring Training 2022 Report: April 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diamondbacks Spring Training: April 3, 2022<\/h2>\n

Saturday saw another Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> spring training workout in the morning. That afternoon, they hosted the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> in a 1:10 pm Cactus League exhibition game. Diamondbacks righty Corbin Martin faced Reds lefty Nick Lodolo.<\/p>\n

Torey Lovullo<\/strong> Pregame<\/h3>\n

Madison Bumgarner, to no surprise, will be the Opening Day starter. Lovullo added after the announcement, \u201cI want to acknowledge how hard he has worked and what type of shape he came in here. And I said three weeks ago, the way his arm was working and the bullpens he was throwing, I could tell that he was preparing and ready for the season. So compliments to him on the work that he did in the in the blackout period. He came in here and earned this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Third baseman Josh Rojas has a Grade Two right oblique strain, something he said he\u2019s been feeling for \u201ca couple of days.\u201d Lovullo said that Rojas will be \u201cout for a while\u201d and that it\u2019s \u201cin terms of weeks, not days.\u201d Drew Ellis has a locker in the major league clubhouse again, in the meantime. He will be in the running for the job, along with Jake Hager and Sergio Alcantara. The priority, Lovullo said, is \u201csomebody that can pick up the baseball and operate at full speed while playing defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lovullo, when asked, acknowledged that he wished Rojas had spoken up sooner. Consequently, Lovullo used this as a lesson to the team. \u201c(I) explained to the group that mental toughness is not playing through something and playing through the grit. Mental toughness is saying, \u2018I need to step out of this game or step out of an at-bat, get examined, and let somebody know that I’m not feeling right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other notes<\/h4>\n

Retired Boston Red Sox<\/a> second baseman, two-time World Series champion, and former Arizona State Sun Devil<\/a> Dustin Pedroia spoke to the team Sunday as a special guest. \u201cDustin delivered a great message to our team today. I didn’t have any doubt that he would do anything less than that. He talked about preparation, focus, effort, and the ability to win. What it means to win inside of a day,\u201d Lovullo recapped.<\/p>\n

Luke Weaver \u201cfeels good\u201d and is progressing as expected from his thumb injury. Lovullo said there is little concern over a prompt return.<\/p>\n

The pitching rotation will have Bumgarner, Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen, and Zach Davies in some order. The fifth member of the rotation is still up for grabs and will be announced once the staff finishes \u201cevaluating guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torey Lovullo Postgame<\/h3>\n

The Reds won in a blowout, 15\u20134, boosted largely by an eight-run second inning. Lovullo summed up the day with, \u201cObviously a long day out there, not an ideal game. We got to do a couple things better. We’ve identified a couple things. We got to land pitches, throw pitches in the right place, identify swing planes, and know how to attack hitters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin had some \u201cmisses\u201d and some pitches that were badly executed at critical times, according to Lovullo. There were other pitches that went well, but overall, the outing was inconsistent.<\/p>\n

The team needs to run through a few things at Chase Field over the next three days, Lovullo said, \u201cbut I think we’re really close. Our pitchers have been thrown the ball really well. We highlighted and emphasized picking up the baseball defensively. So I think those two things are in a really good spot, but the remaining things that we need to get off of our checklist, we\u2019ll take care of tomorrow and the following two days after that. But we’re in a really good spot. This team is coming together very nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking Ahead<\/h3>\n

Diamondbacks spring training continues Monday, April 4. They will hold camp in the morning before playing a pair of split-squad games. One group will head to Peoria to face the Seattle Mariners<\/a> in a 1:10 pm matinee, while the other will host the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> at 6:40 pm at Chase Field. In Peoria, a pair of lefties will go at it \u2014 Caleb Smith for the Diamondbacks and Marco Gonzales for the Mariners. Diamondbacks righty Zach Davies will battle Guardians lefty Konnor Pilkington at Chase Field.<\/p>\n

Main Photo:<\/h4>\n
\"Diamondbacks<\/a>
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Apr 3) \u2014 The Arizona Diamondbacks battle the Cincinnati Reds in Cactus League action at Salt River Fields. The Reds won, 15\u20134. (Photo by Evan Thompson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Players mentioned:<\/h4>\n

Corbin Martin<\/a><\/strong>, Nick Lodolo<\/a>, <\/strong>Torey Lovullo<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>Madison Bumgarner<\/a><\/strong>, Josh Rojas<\/a><\/strong>, Drew Ellis<\/a><\/strong>, Jake Hager<\/a><\/strong>, Sergio Alcantara<\/a>, Dustin Pedroia<\/a>, Luke Weaver<\/a>, Merrill Kelly<\/a>, Zac Gallen<\/a>, Zach Davies<\/a>, Caleb Smith<\/a>, Marco Gonzales<\/a>, Konnor Pilkington<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diamondbacks Spring Training: April 3, 2022 Saturday saw another Arizona Diamondbacks spring training workout in the morning. That afternoon, they hosted the Cincinnati Reds in a 1:10 pm Cactus League exhibition game. Diamondbacks righty Corbin Martin faced Reds lefty Nick Lodolo. Torey Lovullo Pregame Madison Bumgarner, to no surprise, will be the Opening Day starter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2901,"featured_media":54347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1071],"tags":[2403,5090,477,2974,2562,78,2613,94],"class_list":["post-54346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diamondbacks","category-mlb","tag-corbin-martin","tag-drew-ellis","tag-dustin-pedroia","tag-josh-rojas","tag-luke-weaver","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-nick-lodolo","tag-nl-west"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}