As the heat island of Phoenix continues to fester, I wonder if this is going to become the way of things. By that, I mean Cactus League – and possibly, Fall League – games being moved from the afternoon to the evening, to avoid the worst heat. I’m a little surprised they moved today’s game, but left tomorrow and Sunday with the usual 1 pm starts. Saturday’s forecast high temperatures is 105 F, which would be almost indistinguishable from today, and destroying the all-time record for March 21, currently eight degrees below that. Maybe weekend attendees at the Cactus League are made of asbestos or something.
After Zac Gallen, we may expect to see LHP Philip Abner, RHP Kevin Ginkel, RHP Ryan Thompson, and RHP Andrew Hoffmann. All of those definitely have a shot at a bullpen spot. Abner has likely overtaken Brandyn Garcia after the latter’s recent struggles, but as noted earlier, Ginkel has had his problems too. As expected when spring started, the Arizona bullpen was always likely to be the area most subject to change on the team. We’re now down to less than a week before Opening Day, and perhaps half the bullpen spots are still up for grabs. We’ll talk about that more tomorrow though.