Phillies Lay Out Prospect-Laden Lineup for Tampa Exhibition Game
By John Town
Phillies manager Pete Mackanin announced the lineup for the team’s exhibition game Thursday against the University of Tampa.
The Phillies open spring training every year with an exhibition game against the University of Tampa. This year, that game will take place Thursday at one o’clock P.M. and will be streamed by the university here.
Manager Pete Mackanin’s lineup for the game is as follows:
- CF Roman Quinn
- SS J.P. Crawford
- RF Dylan Cozens
- 1B Rhys Hoskins
- LF Nick Williams
- C Jorge Alfaro
- 2B Scott Kingery
- 3B Hector Gomez
- DH Andrew Pullin
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Minor-league pitcher Mark Leiter, Jr. will be the team’s starting pitcher for the day and the game is set to go seven innings.
The Phils infamously lost the game against Tampa in 2015, prompting Mackanin to use several major-leaguers in last year’s lineup to prevent a repeat of that. However, he doesn’t appear too concerned this year. Mackanin is expected to use few, if any, major-leaguers in the game.
“I might get someone in there for an at-bat, but I don’t want to take any chances against a college team,” Mackanin said Tuesday. “We have so many games and so much time left. There’s no rush for that. And it’s only seven innings.”
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While the lineup doesn’t contain any big-league players, it is absolutely loaded with some of the team’s top prospects. If you want to get a first look at any of these players, Thursday is the day.
This lineup could be fairly similar to the one trotted out at Triple-A Lehigh Valley this year. Several of the players in the lineup is expected to start the year with the IronPigs. Kingery and perhaps Pullin will return to Double-A. Gomez has an outside shot of making the team as a backup infielder, but going to Triple-A is more likely as a non-roster invitee. The first six are almost all locks to head to Lehigh Valley this year.
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Thursday we will get to see the Phils play in their first game in more than four months, and we will get a glance at some of the team’s top prospects in the process. While they won’t be in the majors to start the year, they could very well wind up there by the end of the season.