by Michael Duca

SCOTTSDALE AZ–You just hope that the San Francisco Giants Hunter Pence heals as well as pitcher Matt Cain seems to have. Most of them seemed to come through with flying colors. There are other players that were a little nicked up like pitcher Javier Lopez who the other day I saw him throw a very solid inning Giants pitcher Sergio Romo threw to live hitters a few days ago in batting practice.

Giants outfielder Nori Aoki who is 1-15 with a bunt single I had a chance to see him hit a little over the course of spring training and on one of his at bats he got drilled in the shoulder. It’s had to say but you just can’t put a tremendous lot of stock this early in spring training, you just can’t in spring training put a lot into the numbers of a hitter.

Sure you want to see a lot of people do well in spring training, teams are facing a polar of their own division and their not going to tip their hand what they do and how their going to do things in the regular season. So teams are going to hold their cards a little closer to their vests. That having been said you’d like to see your lead off hitter doing better than .083.

Giant pitcher Jeremy Affeldt has a lot on his fast ball this spring, he has a vicious curve, he has a nice cutter to right handed hitters. He’s just an effective pitcher as he is in the clubhouse. The interesting thing about former Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s little tantrum when he said it was not about the money leaving the Giants but how the organization mistreated him and where he said he was only speaking to Hunter Pence and manager Bruce Bochy on the club. Somebody on the team actually tweeted out “really you (Pablo) can’t get along with Jeremy Affeldt?” Everybody can get along with Affeldt.

Giants catcher Andrew Sasac was aiming to be the back up catcher to Buster Posey but it won’t be the worst thing in the world if Sasac was sent down to Triple A affiliate Sacramento to start the year and maybe be given the opportunity to play a little third base in the minor leagues. He’s certainly not going to learn that position at the major league level.

Oakland A’s update: A’s general manager Billy Beane knows how to construct a team together with type O blood and make it work universally. They all fit anywhere and it wouldn’t hurt the Giants to have that kind of flexibility. A’s catcher Stephen Vogt has been an inspirational hitter for the time he was active on the A’s roster last season before his foot injury.

Vogt was hotter than a pistol earlier in the year and remained hot after the all-star break. He wasn’t hitting .340 after the break like he was before. He kept his average up around .300 and he was still attacking the ball. Vogt’s catching skills weren’t terrific but the A’s have catcher Josh Phegley on the roster.

I’ve listened to a number of people in spring training say that Phegley is the best defensive catcher in the game or one of the best defensive catchers they’ve ever seen. Again it’s the Billy Beane theory you mix and match, you have the defensive catcher in the line up and have Vogt be your DH on days when you got rabbits on the bases and when Billy Butler takes a day off from DH. The rest of the time you can Vogt behind the plate working on his major league catching skills at the major league level.

It’s spring time and A’s first baseman Ike Davis is getting back spasms he already played seven or eight games. Stuff happens wake up and see how much fun he’d be and there is a lot of things to think about that goes on. They think they should ignore all that, they have bodies like the rest of us and Davis made an effort to get back in the line up because he was a little afraid of being Wally Pipped.

Michael Duca covers the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants in spring training for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below