ORLANDO, Fla – Rays and Mickey Mouse started spring training with Mickey greeting Skipper Kevin Cash and baseball bosses Eric Neander and Peter Bendix at a press conference at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports. Bendix says get ready, Central Florida baseball fans.
“We feel we have a really exciting, fun athletic young team that’s capable of doing a lot of things,” Bendix, Rays GM, said. “It (Rays) has players on it that are extremely fun to watch.” Cash thinks being at Disney and then moving to the Trop before the season can benefit his club. Cash admitted that spring training can drag on, and it’s hard to get up for games that don’t count. A change of scenery, Cash says, can be good. As far as on the field, the Rays are still built with pitching and defense.
“I think you can make the case on paper, and I know it doesn’t mean a ton, but starting pitching, we feel we’re in a good spot,” Cash said. “We hope that continues and in good health. It’ll be exciting watching these guys build up.”
The Rays were forced to look for a new spring training facility because Hurricane Ian damaged their Port Charlotte complex. So the Rays will use Disney to train and then head to the Trop for Grapefruit league games. Cash believes his team is hungry this spring, and the goal, as always, is to win the World Series.
“You’d expect that because it’s a highly competitive group,” Cash said. “Last year, you could probably make the case; there were some more ups and downs than were anticipated. But a lot of good things but a lot of frustrating things, and definitely ended on a frustrating note. The mindset of this time is certainly get to the postseason and get deep, deep into the postseason, and we didn’t do that.”
All workouts will be open to the public and run similarly to watch the Rays as they did in Port Charlotte.
Disney is known for being the happiest place on earth. The Rays will be happy getting out of the Wide World of Sports Complex without any major injuries because depth could be a problem this summer.
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