Opening Day, 2015

South Carolina Bombers are all set across the board (25, 30, 30, 40) and their notable moves were, what I consider, somewhat surprising as well….

Reijiro Yamaguchi, who was a SP last year amongst his recall, has been relegated to the bullpen to start the season, as the upstart Matt Murphy had a pretty good spring and won the #5 spot in the rotation.  Yamaguchi’s stuff should work well in the bullpen and add another quality arm for late inning work.

Martin Evans, last year’s rookie starting CF’er and stolen base artist was shipped out.  This move was two-fold.  Eugene White, 28 year old rookie, had an exceptional spring and basically won the job outright.  However, Evans being 25 upper management wanted Martin to continue playing and not sit on an ABL bench to continue his development.  With Chance Everett, Roy "ROQ" O’Quinn, and Stephen "Action" Jackson, there doesn’t appear to be many games that White would appear in and team officials thought that White could adjust better to limited playing time.  White also adds some much needed power off the bench in a pinch hitting role.

Finally, in what is being called a surprise in the SC Press, Jayson O’Neill with his torrid spring won his job back from 22 year old Stu Yarbrough.  O’Neill hit .314 with an OPS of .810 .  It is anticipated that O’Neill will get anywhere from 60% of the playing time and manager Gary Altman has told both players that he will primarily play the hot bat, but for defensive reasons Yarbrough will see more action against the league felons (i.e., Kansas City, etc.).

In regards to their starting rotation, the only thing that Bombers have announced is that John “Flipper” Martin has been named the Opening Day Starting Pitcher vs. Boston on April 4^th.