Category: Sports News

I’m still a little let down after Canada bowed out of the World Baseball Classic yesterday, but the best (and sometimes the worst!) part about baseball is there’s another game today. This time, my attention will be taken up by an exhibition contest between the Yankees and the Phillies, from the Bombers’ spring home in Tampa.

I’m dating someone who is Gen Z, and I’m so happy he has a normal name, because whatever compelled Bryse Wilson’s parents to spell his name like that makes me shudder to imagine. He’s with his fifth organization in his career, trying to crack the Phillies roster as a swingman, but hasn’t exactly raised eyebrows in spring — at least not in the good way. His 5.14 ERA so far in Grapefruit League play is higher than his career 4.82, but when the sample sizes are this small one strong outing could change things.

The Yankees will counter with Wilson’s old Braves teammate Max Fried, who looked in midseason form in his only previous spring outing. The nominal Yankee ace has two more starts before getting the ball for Opening Day, and the key for him is going to be health. The club has a strong, if slightly battered rotation, and Fried’s left arm is a big piece of that all working the way it should. Fiveish innings and a big smile from the dugout is all we need today.

The entire starting lineup is made up of MLB regulars today, with Trent Grisham leading off exactly as he’s expected to start the season. Ben Rice hits second and is at first base, and with Austin Wells being a hero for the Dominican Republic at the WBC, J.C. Escarra is getting plenty of spring reps behind the dish.

How to watch

Location: George M Steinbrenner Field — Tampa, FL

First pitch: 1:05 pm ET

TV broadcast: NBCSP+ (PHI)

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660 AM (NYY) | 94 WIP (PHI)

Online stream: Gotham Sports App, MLB.tv

For updates, follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.

It’s time for more Bryce Elder, folks! I know you’re amped up to see it and I’m certainly amped up to talk about it. Yep, I totally mean that with all sincerity. In all seriousness though, let’s hope that we see Elder show some improvement after his last outing was a bit of a mess. This is also a home game so the lineup should be favorable enough for Elder to be able to hae a productive outing in this one. If not, then the race for the fifth starter spot could suddenly get a lot more interesting if he trips up against this particular lineup.

Here’s the lineup for the Braves:

Here’s the lineup for the Red Sox:

The game will be televised and you can find it on whatever channel serves as your local affiliate for Gray TV. 103.7 FM will be carrying the game locally on the radio. First pitch is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. ET. Let’s get it!

UPDATE: Whoops! For some reason I can’t tell a “1” from a “6”. It’s spring training for everybody, I guess. We’ll see you later on then.

UPDATE [5:13 p.m. ET]: Lineups are now posted

We’re pretty excited about Lucas Elissalt. Right now he doesn’t really have the stuff of a frontline starter, but there are a lot of traits that point toward a very advanced young pitcher who repeats everything well with good command. As we keep noting in these reports, the Tigers have had a lot of success plucking undervalued college and JUCO pitchers beyond the top few rounds of the draft. In Elissalt they may have landed a real steal.

The Miami native wasn’t a very notable college name in the hotbed of competition that is the Florida baseball scene. He went to Coastal Alabama JC as a freshman, and transferred as a sophomore to one of the top JUCO baseball programs in the country at Chipola College. A good season got the Tigers’ interest, and they snapped him up in the 13th round with seemingly no one else paying attention to the young right-hander. They only had to pay him $187,500 to sign, just a little over the minimum, though there were D1 programs interested in picking him up for his junior season. As a result, Elissalt was still a week shy of his 20th birthday when he signed with the Tigers.

The traits that made Elissalt intriguing to the Tigers were his cutting fourseam shape, extension, and advanced command. The lanky 6’4” right-hander gets way down the mound, producing nearly seven feet of extension. That low angle to the strike zone helps his riding fourseamer play up, and yet he’s able to repeat well and spot a deep pitch mix that includes a kick change the Tigers taught him in 2024 during his work in Lakeland after the draft.

The reason Elissalt didn’t attract much attention on draft day is the fact that his velocity sits in the low-90’s. The Tigers bet that he had plenty of room on his frame to build muscle without sacrificing that easy delivery and great extension. His brother, Frank Elissalt, was drafted in the 2024 draft by the Cardinals in the 19th round as a college junior, and had a similar build and low 90’s fastball on draft day. He has since built himself up to throw in the mid-90’s, touching as high as 98 mph and so the hope is that Lucas, who is about a year and a half younger, will follow that example.

The Tigers sent Elissalt to Single-A Lakeland last spring to begin his pro career, and he quickly opened a lot of eyes after going fairly unnoticed on draft day. As a JUCO pick and still younger than most college pitchers in his draft, he struck out 28.8 percent of hitters faced over 65 1/3 innings for the Flying Tigers, with a walk rate of 7.5 percent. The strikeouts, advanced control, and his 2.48 ERA/3.09 FIP combination got our attention, and the Tigers promoted him to West Michigan in August after the trade deadline. He made six starts there, and though he walked a bunch of hitters for the first time in a couple of those starts, his strikeout rate held up and he didn’t allow a home run, producing very similar ERA/FIP numbers. By season’s end, he had the highest strikeout rate of any Tigers prospect who worked full-time as a starter last year.

Elissalt doesn’t pop crazy IVB numbers, sitting at 17 inches of vertical break last year, but that can be improved somewhat. It also matters less because that huge stride and his arm angle produce a lower release point and a really good attack angle to the upper parts of the strike zone. He was still generally around 92 mph, touching as high as 94 mph, and if that velocity starts to tick up, the late cutting action, ride, and extension will produce a very good major league heater.

He backs the fourseamer with a pretty good slider after ditching the harder cutter he had in college. It’s a pretty classic gyro spin slider from 83-85 mph and Elissalt took to it quickly and was pretty consistent with the break and location all year. His best pitch is an above average curveball with really good depth in the 78-79 mph range that got whiffs and stole strikes for him consistently last year. He can tilt it away on the outer edge against right-handers and showed some feel for adding depth when hunting for chase swings. Like the fastball, the breaking balls could use a touch more velocity to help them bite a bit later. The Tigers helped him develop a kick changeup post-draft and that pitch has really good deception, though it too would benefit if the fastball was firmer.

The big selling points for Elissalt are his extension, smooth, easy delivery, and advanced command of a pretty deep pitch mix. He’s already got a year of pro ball under his belt and handled two A-ball levels pretty well despite being the age of most 2025 college draft picks. He shows a good understanding of how to work his fastball around the zone and set hitters up for his secondaries, and took to some minor mechanical adjustments the Tigers made with him after the draft pretty quickly, while also refining the new changeup nicely over the course of the 2025 season.

Right now, if Elissalt had a couple more ticks on his heater consistently, he’d already look like a upper level starter closing in on the big leagues. As things stand, he does need that bump in stuff to take him from a future depth starter into more of a future mid-rotation type with the potential for more. While his delivery is smoother and lower effort than his older brother, Elissalt knows he needs that velocity bump and trained for it this offseason. We’ll be looking for that to arrive, with some positive reports in camp already indicating that he’s been throwing harder this spring. The feel and adaptability he’s shown bodes well for a major league career in a starting rotation. He should start the season with the Whitecaps again, but we expect him to move to Double-A pretty quickly if things go well.

Baltimore Orioles vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, March 14, 2026, 1:05 p.m. ET

Location: LECOM Park, Bradenton, FL

How to Listen: KDKA-FM 93.7

The Pittsburgh Pirates are at home today against the Baltimore Orioles looking to grab a win in Spring Training.

Please remember our Game Day thread guidelines.

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BD community, this is your thread for today’s game. Enjoy!

The slow drip of bad Romy Gonzalez news has reached its inevitable conclusion, as Gonzalez just underwent surgery to repair a tear in his left labrum. Believe it or not, this is not the worst case scenario. He’ll go on the 60-day IL and then likely need a lengthy rehab period, but he should be back sometime in mid-summer. (Tim Healey, Boston Globe)

Taking Romy’s spot on the roster will be lefty reliever Danny Coulombe, whom we told you about yesterday. It actually sounds like the Sox and Coulombe first approached each other about a deal at the beginning of the offseason, so Coulombe had a relatively stress-free winter watching his kids play soccer and jogging around his Dallas-area neighborhood in his cleats. (CJ Haddad, MLB.com)

Missing most of Spring Training meant that Coulombe missed a little bit of history, as Braiden Ward broke the record for most steals in one spring training, and then went all Ricky Henderson to celebrate. (Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic)

Despite making history, Braiden Ward remains a big long shot to make the opening day roster. Connelly Early, on the other hand, entered Spring Training legimately hoping to win a spot in the rotation. But while MLB’s service time rules are making that look unlikely right now, he’s trying not to let it affect him. (Christopher Smith, MLB.com)

Early’s fellow rookie fireballer, Payton Tolle, was always less likely to make the big league team out of camp. And he knows exactly why that is and what he needs to work on:

Marcelo Mayer is also competing for a roster spot — at least, that’s what Alex Cora is saying publicly. Mayer has had an up-and-down week amidst an up-and-down spring. And while Cora is pleased that he had two hits in yesterday’s game, he still had some criticism for Mayer’s defense on an attempted double-play. (Christopher Smith, MassLive)

If Mayer needs any more defensive tutelage, he can always look to shortstop Trevor Story. Story and ace Garrett Crochet are the two guys Alex Cora is looking at to be clubhouse leaders this season. (Kaley Brown, Boston.com)

Here are the lineups. For the Phillies:

For the Yankees:

Let’s talk about it.

If you’ve heard much about RHP John Brebbia, it might have something to do with his beard — which has a story all its own. (More on that in a minute.)

Right now, however, the reliever is working to make the Colorado Rockies as they begin to shore up their Opening Day roster.

Last weekend, Purple Row spoke to Brebbia at spring training to get his thoughts on the rebuilding Rockies, acting as a mentor, and, of course, that beard.

Some background

Brebbia is the kind of journeyman reliever that’s seen a lot of places.

He grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, and attended Elon University. (In case you’re intrested, he completed his degree in political science a few years ago.) The 35-year-old righty was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 2011 MLB Draft (30th round) and then embarked on his long baseball journey.

On May 28, 2017, Brebbia made his MLB debut against — and this is true — the Rockies.

Brebbia has played for a lot of teams: St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves (twice), and Detroit Tigers. Add to that, he’s had plenty of time on MiLB rosters, too.

He has the kind of arsenal the Rockies looking for. According to Baseball Savant, Brebbia has a four-pitch mix: a four-seamer (49%), a slider (43%), a changeup (7%), and a curveball (1%).

Brebbia has a career 4.04 ERA (3.80 FIP) in 378.1 IP and has accumulated 3.1 fWAR.

According to Baseball Reference, Brebbia has logged 13 games, including 43 plate appearances at Coors Field. He has a 0.93 ERA, allowing 10 hits that resulted in two runs while striking out 10.

Spending time with the Rockies

Brebbia has, admittedly, attended his share of spring training camps. So far, he’s impressed with the “good energy” he’s seen at Salt River Fields from coaches, players, and the performance department.

“It’s just a high energy,” Brebbia said. “There’s a lot of excitement, which I think is so fun. You don’t always, you don’t always get that everywhere.”

Even though he’s new to the Rockies orgnization, Brebbia is not new to some of the Rockies coaching staff since he worked with Gabe Ribas during as time with the Detroit Tigers and Matt Daniels while with the Tigers and San Francisco Giants.

“I think this staff is awesome,” he said. “I think they work well together. I think that they’re they’re all working towards the same goal. I don’t want to say they’re ‘like-minded’ because I think they all can offer different things in different ways.”

He continued, “But there’s a couple things that are philosophy/process-oriented that I think this coaching staff is really grabbing by the reins and using as the foundational driver for pitching success. And I it makes sense. It passes the gut check, it passes the brain check, it passes the computer algorithm check. So I think it’s a really good starting place.”

Brebbia was quick to point out the collaborative nature of the Rockies new coaching staff.

“I feel like the staff will offer input in roughly equal amounts throughout our pitchers meetings,” Brebbia said.

“It might not all be on the same topic. One person could be more pitch sequencing, while the other person is more biomechanical or flight-aerodynamic oriented, but I feel like everyone has an area of pitching that they like or that they’re interested in, or that they are maybe responsible for.”

Plus, the coaching staff is informed.

“I have noticed that throughout our meetings, they all provide input, and you can tell that they’ve done their research and they care about it.”

A lifelong learner

Although Brebbia is older that most of his fellow Rockies bullpen denizens, he doesn’t see himself as a mentor to younger players.

“I learned a heck of a lot more from them than the other way around,” he said, acknowledging that baseball is a fast-changing game.

“Baseball, every few years, you look at it and you’re like, ‘Whoa. Everyone’s a heck of a lot better now than they used to be,‘” Brebbia said. “So I’m doing as much as I can to absorb how the heck everyone here is throwing 1000 miles an hour, and why everyone’s got four pitches that are really good and that break right.”

Then he added, “if there’s anything I can offer, great, but I’m pretty useless, so we’ll see.“

Brebbia is cagey, however, about revealing what he’s working on in terms of his pitch mix.

“I might have a couple,” he said. “I might have six of them. I might have 11 of them.”

But there are definitely some changes in the mix.

“We’ll whittle it down into what will hopefully be the in season arsenal before too long. But yeah, I am working on a handful of things.”

Much of this is consistent with what Brebbia told hosts CJ Nitkowski and Ryan Spilborghs during “Players Week” on “Loud Outs.“

Spilborghs: I had the pleasure last night emceeing a little event with some stakeholders with the Rockies. And we were talking with Paul de Podesta. And Paul was describing this pitching staff and this group of new thinkers, as far as the coaching staff. They brought in Alon Leichman from Miami, Gabe Ribas— I believe he came from the White Sox. You have MattBuschmann, who’s bounced around. What does that make you feel when you know you have a brand new coaching staff? Do you have a feeling, like, they’re just gonna throw stuff up, throw stuff up against the wall. Does that excite you to be a part of that?

Brebbia: I think that you can kind of have two approaches towards seeing that. I know some people are like, “Okay, give me one thing. Let me do this one thing. Let me slow down.” I’m the exact opposite. I would like to be rapid fire shot by a paintball gun with as many things as you can possibly get. And then let’s see what works and what doesn’t work.

I expect tons of failure because I want to try tons of things, and you hope you get a little bit that works out of it, at least. So when I see something like that, I get excited because I’m like, “Oh, cool.”

Baseball is so rapidly moving in — I don’t want to say a new direction. It’s not like technology is new, and the data they’re collecting is new, but it’s it’s advancing very quickly in the direction that it’s going. So I think that when you have a bunch of different thought processes, a bunch of different minds kind of getting together and firing away, I think you can get some really, really special things out of it.

Again, some people can look at it and say, ”That feels messy to me. I don’t like that.” But I think there’s a lot more people that are like, ”That’s pretty cool. Let’s see what happens.” Because if the one way doesn’t work, you have so many other options to go to. So I love being able to see it and then be a part of it.

If there’s one thing that’s been clear since DePodesta became the Rockies president of baseball operations, it’s that anything is on the table — In 2026, the Rockies intend to try a lot of things to see what works. To do that, they are going to need players who are willing to be creative and aren’t afraid to fail.

Brebbia is just the type.

Then there’s there’s the beard

Rockies fans are used to their players making the most of their facial hair — Charlie Blackmon provides an obvious point.

Brebbia, too, has his own approach that he curates during the MLB season in addition to his pitching.

“Years and years ago, 2014 was the first year I had some teammates that shaved and were just going to grow their beards at just for something to do in the middle of the season,” Brebbia said. “I thought, ‘Why the heck not? I’ll do that.’ So I clean shaved and then just let it go.”

Then the magic started.

“It ended up being a year where I was like, ‘Wow, I actually feel like I got a lot better this year.’ I did some really good things and tried to move my career forward. So I did it again the next year, and I felt the same way. And then it just kind of became, it became a thing.”

And so a Brebbian tradition was born.

“I’ll clean shave before the first game of the season spring training,” he said. “I more or less keep it however it is now, but I’ll clean shave right before the first game of the season, and then just let it ride until they tell me the season’s over.”

Look at any in-season photos of Brebbia, and you’ll have a pretty good sense of the month based on his facial hair.

The next question, then, is whether fans and Brebbia will be tracking his beard growth as a Rockie.

Teams are beginning to trim their rosters, so we’ll know soon enough.

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