Open Thread: March 8th Camp Notes

The Yankees roughed up Canada in a World Baseball Classic exhibition game earlier today. Matt Holliday, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Hicks, and Kyle Higashioka all hit home runs. Jacoby Ellsbury doubled and Chase Headley tripled. How many outfielders had to fall down for Headley to triple? At least one. Hicks and Jorge Mateo both had two hits and a stolen base. Nice day for the bats.

Luis Severino started and had a tough go of it, allowing two runs on four hits and a walk in two innings. He served up a two-run homer to top Mariners prospect Tyler O’Neill. Severino struck out four, and afterwards Joe Girardi told Erik Boland “all the guys are fairly close” in the rotation competition right now. Aroldis Chapman struck out all three batters he faced. Johnny Barbato and Dietrich Enns each allowed a solo homer in their two innings of work. Another multiple inning outing for Barbato. Hmmm. Here is the box score for today’s game. It wasn’t televised, so there are no video highlights. Here is the rest of the day’s news from Spring Training:

• The Netherlands has clinched a spot in the second round of the World Baseball Classic. They beat Chinese Taipei in the wee hours this morning when Jurickson Profar drew a walk-off walk. Didi Gregorius went 3-for-4 with three doubles. He drove in three runs and scored two others. Go Didi. Here is the full WBC schedule.
• Bryan Hoch has the pitching assignments and hitting/fielding groups for everyone who didn’t play in today’s game. Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Cessa, Bryan Mitchell, and Jon Niese were among those to throw bullpen assignments. Niese has picked up a new changeup thanks to pitching coach Larry Rothschild. [Brendan Kuty]
• Brett Gardner said he didn’t bunt for hit often enough last year and wants to change that. Specifically, he’s shooting for 15 bunt hits. That’s a lot. Only two players had more than 12 bunts hits the last two years (Dee Gordon had 16 in 2015, Cesar Hernandez had 15 in 2016). Gardner had five last year. His career high is eleven back in 2011. [Jack Curry]
• The Yankees will be on the road to play the Braves tomorrow afternoon. Michael Pineda is lined up to start that game. It will not be televised. No YES, no MLB Network, no ESPN, no MLB.tv, nothing. Sucks.

This is the open thread for the evening. MLB Network is showing a live spring game at 7pm ET (Team USA vs. Twins) and well as live WBC games at 10pm ET (Netherlands vs. Israel) and 5am ET (Australia vs. China). South Korea vs. Chinese Taipei will be on tape delay at 8am ET tomorrow. The Knicks and Nets are both playing tonight, plus there’s a college hoops game on as well. Talk about any of that stuff and more right here, as long as it’s not politics or religion.