LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – When Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate, you get creative.
With a forecast calling for rain most of Wednesday, the Braves moved workouts to two sets of covered batting cages and a massive tent near Champion Stadium on the ESPN Wide World of Sports campus. Mission accomplished. It was a short day, but they got their work in.
“It probably came at a good time, just to kind of give everybody a little (break),” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, whose pitchers and catchers have had formal workouts for one week and still have nearly six weeks to go before opening day. Spring training is several days longer than usual this year because of the World Baseball Classic in March.
“It’s Feb. 22. We could probably send everybody home for two weeks and bring them back and still have time,” Snitker said. “They’ve been working so hard. The biggest thing was keeping the pitchers going and on their schedule, and they did, so that was the big thing today.”
Half of the Braves pitchers threw their first live batting practice to hitters Tuesday, and the other half did it Wednesday in the batting cages beyond left field at Champion Stadium.
The Braves face the Blue Jays in a Grapefruit League opener Saturday at Champion Stadium.
“The pitchers are probably more than ready right now to start and pitch a couple of innings (in a game),” Snitker said. “The hitters, a lot of the guys got their stuff done earlier (Wednesday) before we went out there, then they hit in the cage. I gave a lot of the guys an option of just doing their work (separately). It’s kind of good, really. We’re here so long that every now and then we need to try to pick a spot to do this.”
