I am looking forward to another week closer to spring training. This week my schedule has finally resumed back to normal. I have my regular workouts in the morning and baseball in the afternoon. Now that my schedule is back to normal, I feel like it is a good week for me to respond to a few of your questions.

One of the questions asks, what I am working on and what am I being taught about hitting? Firstly, I’d like to start by sharing my philosophy on hitting – no one should try to hit like me! Ha-ha! But seriously, I feel that everyone’s swing is different. I believe that hitting is about coordination, balance and comfort.

If I were to coach someone on how to hit, especially younger kids, I would tell them the best way to get better is to HIT, and hit a LOT. It’s all about feeling for me. My two favorite drills are hitting off a tee #1 and front toss #2.

When hitting off a tee, make sure to work on pitches on the outside of the plate, middle of the plate, and inside of the plate. As far as I’m concerned if you can learn to hit all three of those, the rest is just mental and getting your pitch. Learn to coach yourself by feel, if you hit enough you can start to feel what works best for you.

Another question was, who are my workout partners? Well this is kind of funny because the three of us that train together were all on the same team when we were 10 years old.

One is Ryan Patterson, who grew up in Rowlett, TX and plays in the Blue Jays organization. The other is Sean Danielson from Irving, TX who was traded from the Cardinals to the Red Sox this year. Our other workout partner is older than us, but he just signed on with the Dodgers, Kelly Gulledge.

I hope this answers some of your questions. Good luck to all of you with the hitting!

Until next time …

Hunter

Post from: EveryJoe

Hunter Pence’s Hitting Tips

ss=split squad

28-Feb 1:05 p.m. Cleveland Indians
29-Feb 1:05 p.m. Cleveland Indians
1-Mar 1:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves
2-Mar 1:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves
3-Mar 1:05 p.m. New York Yankees
4-Mar 1:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers
5-Mar 1:05 p.m Tampa Bay Rays
6-Mar 1:05 p.m. Cleveland Indians
7-Mar 1:15 p.m. New York Yankees
8-Mar 1:05 p.m. Washington Nationals (ss)
8-Mar 1:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves (ss)
9-Mar 1:10 p.m. New York Mets
10-Mar 1:05 p.m. Toronto Blue Jays
11-Mar 1:05 p.m. Cincinnati Reds
12-Mar 1:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers
13-Mar 1:05 p.m. Los Angeles Dodgers
14-Mar 7:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers
15-Mar 1:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves (ss)
15-Mar 1:05 p.m. Cleveland Indians (ss)
16-Mar 1:05 p.m. New York Mets
17-Mar 1:05 p.m. Los Angeles Dodgers
19-Mar 7:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves
20-Mar 1:05 p.m. Washington Nationals
21-Mar 1:05 p.m. Florida Marlins
22-Mar 1:05 p.m. Cincinnati Reds
23-Mar 1:05 p.m. Atlanta Braves
24-Mar 1:05 p.m. Florida Marlins
25-Mar 6:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers
26-Mar 1:05 p.m. Cleveland Indians
27-Mar 1:05 p.m. Toronto Blue Jays
28-Mar 7:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers
29-Mar 1:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers

Click here for game locations and other details.

Post from: EveryJoe

Astros Spring Training Schedule

The 30-year-old from Detroit, Michigan will enter his third season with the Astros in 2008. During the 2007 campaign, Borkowski had five wins, three losses and a save while posting a 5.15 ERA. In 2006, he had three wins, two losses and a 4.69 ERA.

The Astros still have two arbitration-eligible players in pitcher Jose Valverde and infielder Mark Loretta.

Post from: EveryJoe

Astros Sign Dave Borkowski

Starting in left field for the Houston Astros in 2008 will be Carlos Lee. Lee, a native of Panama, is a 31-year-old who is coming into the peak of his career.

In 2007, Lee hit .303 and had 32 homeruns and 119 RBIs in his first year with the Astros. Playing in all 162 games, Lee was a dependable presence for Houston on a daily basis.

Lee’s career began with the Chicago White Sox in 1999. In his first career at bat, Lee hit a homerun. He stayed with the White Sox for six seasons before being traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. After a year and a half with the Brewers, Lee was traded to the Texas Rangers. Last offseason, Lee left the Rangers after a half season to sign with the Astros.

At 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, Lee is nicknamed El Caballo – which means “the horse” in Spanish. El Caballo has quickly become a crowd favorite in Houston. He even has his own fan club in Minute Maid Park called Los Caballitos (little horses).

Lee set career-highs in homeruns (32), RBIs (119), hits (190) and doubles (43) in 2007. With Houston’s lineup even more formidable in 2008, expect Lee to have an even better season this year.

Check out this video clip of Los Caballitos at Minute Maid Park.

Post from: EveryJoe

Carlos Lee – A Closer Look

This week I would like to first thank Jeremy Wright and b5 media for the opportunity to do this. It’s been a good week for me, but a rather busy one. My days are so full now!

I figured I would take all of you through a typical day for me, since I know that some of you are curious. I wake up at around 7:30am to fix a small breakfast and start getting my body moving and warmed up so that I am ready for my 11:00am REPS workout. It is critical that I get a proper warm up in the morning before my work outs or else my performance will suffer and I could possibly get injured. After every training session with REPS we all go to eat at IHOP, which is a tradition for me and my partners. At IHOP, we talk about the workout and try to recover. After my training session and IHOP, I’d say that I get home at around 2:00pm, which gives me an hour to fix my protein shake and take my vitamins and basically just chill until I head to the batting cage at 3:00pm.

We are at Cover All Bases for approximately three hours hitting, throwing, playing ping pong, and visiting. After the cages, we head home so that we can grab a bite to eat. I arrive at home at around 8:00pm, and I am in bed no later than 11:00pm. So that is what my day looks like.

Next week, I plan on adding one hour of Yoga class to my training sessions. I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes with my 6′4 non-flexible body. I guess that I just have to swallow the pride and do my best because it will help keep me healthy and flexible for the season.

I forgot to mention that on Thursday, I did not go to the cage because I decided to make a trip out to Happy Hills Farm to speak to the students there. This is a great facility and farm for children ages 5-18 that have special needs. Many of these kids live at the farm. I had the opportunity to speak to the high school juniors and seniors as well as stop by many of the younger classrooms to give the kids some words of encouragement. I look forward to visiting again in the future and I’m happy that I have found a charity that I want to support and bring to other peoples attention. These children are loved and given a safe and caring environment to live and learn, which provides them with every chance to succeed.

On that note, I would like to finish this week by responding to one of the questions posted for me last week. The reader asked me what it is like to play with Craig Biggio!!!! To answer this question properly would take a long time so I’m going to give a shortened version. Biggio has what I consider the hard nosed, old school mentality that baseball is missing these days. All year, I felt like I was witnessing a huge piece of baseball history and being a part of it was amazing. I was on deck when he hit 3,000, and I was in right field when they took him out of his last game. I’ll never forget these moments, and I’ll never forget the sacrifices he made for the team. The team is what Craig Biggio is all about.

Thanks for reading.

–Hunter

Post from: EveryJoe

A Typical Day – Working Out and IHOP

The first games are scheduled to be Feb. 28 in Winter Haven and Feb. 29 in Kissimmee. Both games will be against the Cleveland Indians and start at 12:05PM CST.

The Astros also announced that the team has extended spring training invites to Mike De Jean (pitcher), Victor Diaz (outfielder), Carlos Hines (pitcher), J.R. House (catcher), Tommy Manzella (infielder), Josh Muecke (pitcher) and Lance Niekro (infielder).

Check out this video clip from last year’s spring training:

Post from: EveryJoe

Astros Announce Spring Training Dates

Towles has a chance be opening day starting catcher for the Astros in 2008. While Towles doesn’t have much big league experience, he did impress last season in the 14 games he played for Houston. During that time, he hit .375 and had one homerun and 12 RBIs.

The 6-foot-2 Towles will be 24-years-old on opening day. Brad Ausmus, who has spent nine of his 16 seasons as a catcher for the Astros, will also return to the team for a tenth season.

Post from: EveryJoe

Astros Catcher J.R. Towles