Spring Training Updates & Olympic News (13 Mar 08)

Australia went down to Chinese Taipei last night 5-0. This was not a good result for the team, who are keen to defend their silver medal from 2004. It means that their chances of making it to Beijing are slim. They need to win their remaining games against Spain and South Africa (on paper this should be no problem, and at the time of writing, Australia were beating Spain 9-0 in the sixth). The bigger problem is that we need Canada to lose to Germany. Given Canada's recent performances against the Aussies, and Germany's run in the tournament so far, this does not look good. But, where there is life there is hope!

In today's spring training action:

• Trent Oeltjen had one at bat but did not get a hit, in the D-Backs' loss to the A's. His spring average is sitting at .300 over 10 at-bats
• Travis Blackley pitched 3 innings in relief in the Phillies loss to the Reds today. He faced 13 batters and struck out 5. He gave up two walks, and two hits, one of which was a home run.