We're inside of 30 days now until the start of 23 season against Southern Miss.  The Flames have been back in practice for just a little over a week and will head into intrasquad scrimmages this weekend.  

Friday - The Flames will square off at 3:30 with Horn & Tepper starting for each respective side.  Germanowski, Carter, Beamon and Willard are all expected to get extended looks.  Talor Grubbs and David Marshall are expected to get a look as well. 

Saturday - Liberty will run it back at 1 PM with Nick Moran and NCSU transfer Trey Cooper starting on opposite sides.  Garret, Erickson, Butler, Johnson & Wilson are the expected pitchers out of the pen Saturday. 

Sunday - The Flames will cap off the weekend with a shorter scrimmage Sunday at 1 PM with Winthrop transfer Garret Gainey on the bump on one side and righty Cole Hurtzler on the other side.  Troyer and Hudson are both expected to see innings Sunday. 


On the defensive side of things there are relatively few positions that are locked down from last year.  I'd expect Cam Foster, Gray Betts & Three Hillier to be the stalwarts along with Jaylen Guy in center.  Outside of that it will be very interesting to see how the battles at SS, 2B and 1B play out in particularly.  You have to think highly touted Juco transfer Victor Castillo will lock down a role of some sort with his bat alone.  

Positional Battles to Watch

2B - Early returns look like a strong battle between Keeter and Simmons who enrolled early at LU.  Keeter has a year of experience so he probably has a little leg up. 

SS - Lazzaro is back and highly touted Canadian import Jack Wheatley is now in the program.  Can Wheatley challenge for the job?  Lazzaro showed he can hit in the 2020 Covid shortened season at St John's but has struggled a bit since then.  

1B/DH - This one is a total wild card.  Jenner, the Winthrop transfer could factor in here as could Will Stewart the UNC transfer.  We also saw Hurtzler there a bit last year and Three Hillier could be DHing some this year.  

Corner OF - Last we saw the Flames Troyer the Clemson transfer was manning RF and Stewart was in LF with Castillo DHing if memory serves me correct.  It also sounds like freshman Kane Kepley has shown some things defensively in the outfield.  2 sport start Brylan Green is with the team and practicing but it obviously takes a bit to catch up after not being a part of fall workouts and moving up to the D1 level.  

Flames in MILB

Former Flame 2B Will Wagner was extended a non 40 man roster invite to Big League Spring Training with the Astros.  Wags spent most of 22 in AA and was listed by multiple beat writers and publications as one of the top 2 fastest rising prospects in the Astros organization.  It's unlikely that he would  break camp with the big league club but he has a great opportunity to make a name for himself and set up to be a late season call up with a strong camp showing followed by a good 1st half of the MILB season. 

Stay tuned on other potential MLB camp and WBC news.  

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