It's Snowing!

Another weekend of hiking, another weekend of movies, and another badly-missed weather forecast. Not bad at all. Here're the highlights of what I missed.

• Good news: Jose Vidro's apparently healthy enough to play on Wednesday. That's not too surprising as he's already been caught playing basketball (Why, Jose, Why?)
  
  I just hope they don't push him too hard. There's no sense in pushing him in these meaningless games. As far as hitting goes, he seems to be the second coming of The Mechanical Man -- at least in his consistency, if not his results.
  

  "If he tells me he wants to play a couple of innings starting the first couple of exhibition games just to get the feel of things, fine. If he tells me he'd like to play every other game the first week or so, that's fine. Whatever he tells me and the medical staff tells me, I leave it up to the player in this situation out of respect for him."

  
  
• Mike Hinckley, who desparately needs a nickname and I suppose that some variant of 'assassin' is over the line, will take over after Tony Armas in Wednesday's game. Everyone around the team says that Hinckley has a chance to make the team this spring, but I'd be shocked if he did, simply because he has minor league options left. They can send him down without fear of losing him, unlike some of their other players.
  

  [Pitching Coach Randy] St. Claire's rotation is set for nearly the entire spring, all with the idea of preparing each pitcher for the regular season. That Hinckley, 22, is positioned so prominently could be an indication of how serious the Nationals are about giving him a chance to make the team.

  
  
• Zach Day's nickname is Harry Potter. Hmmm....that might work.
  
  Apparently, he's an artist too, and has done sketches and paintings of his teammates.
  
  Day, as I've said before, has the chance to be the team's best non-¡Livan! pitchers. Now, they just need to smarten up and ensure that he stays in the rotation, not the pen.
  

  "I like the challenge of starting right now," Day said. "I want to start right now. I'm sure [ideas] get knocked around. It's their job to try and find different pieces to the puzzle. I've kind of made my point that I'd rather start, but I'm not the one up top making the decisions."

  
  
• The Times looks at what should be the strength of this team, the bullpen.
  

  "It's always good to have competition. That's what you look for. That's what makes you better," Patterson said. "You want to have people behind you pushing you, making you work harder, and that just makes the team better going into the season. ... We've got a lot of good arms. It's going to be a really strong pitching staff this year."

  
  
• Apparently, Jose Guillen was involved in some sort of altercation with his old team, the Angels last year. I'm glad the Post is on top of this! It's too bad we didn't know before we traded for him.