Thanks to everyone who came out to the open practice tonight. Lot of fun. The team is ready to go. Some notes…

• BlueClaws fans will really enjoy Tyler Cloyd,who is starting Opening Night on Thursday. He seems to be an easy-going, fun-loving guy. There will be a video interview with Cloyd (and manager Dusty Wathan) up on APP.com Wednesday morning.
• Supplemental first-round pick Zach Collier can cover a ton of ground in the outfield, as can D’Arby Myers and Anthony Gose for that matter. They’ll have to. FirstEnergy Park is one of the larger outfields in the league.
• Travis “Moose” Mattair was the most sought after autograph during the post-event signing. Several fans sought him out afterwards and he signed every ball and talked to every fan.
• Mattair will start at 3rd, Troy Hanzawa at short, no surprises there.
• Spoke with Jesus Sanchez. He’s looking forward to his first professional start on Sunday, not Saturday as we reported yesterday. Rob Roth will pitch Saturday. Sanchez has only been throwing bullpen sessions for a few months, and moved over full time from catcher during the instructional league in the fall.
• Also talked to Jason Knapp. He’s very excited to be in Lakewood, not too far from his Annandale home. Annandale is off Route 78 near Easton, PA. Knapp goes Friday night, with a bunch of family and friends in attendance.
• Ryan Ariail will be ready for the long bus rides. He spent last year with Winnipeg in the Northern League, where it’s 16 hours to Gary, Indiana.
• Sebastian Valle is indeed a right-handed batter as a commenter correctly noted. His last name is pronounced “VAI-ye.” Vai rhymes with eye.
• Tim Gradoville, a former BlueClaws catcher, will spend a few weeks with the team as an instructor.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under 2009 BlueClaws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.