Yankees Spring Training Notes: George Lombard Jr., Ryan Weathers, gameday experience

Wednesday night's New York Yankees vs. Washington Nationals spring training contest was oddly meaningful in the grand scheme of meaningless games. Ryan Weathers made his debut in pinstripes — formally, with the regular hats and everything instead of the Grapefruit Dandies — and looked stellar.

The game was also notable because ... somehow, as someone who'd come down to Florida and Arizona multiple times with my parents during childhood ... this was my first game at George M. Steinbrenner Field. I'd only been once before — back in 2006 for an open workout — and, strike me down if you want to, but I always preferred the other complexes that were way more accessible to fans. Watching the Yankees at spring training felt like watching batting practice before a regular season game. You could see them up close, but they weren't traversing back fields and mingling with kids. They were kind of just ... going about their business in a more intimate setting. And they definitely weren't signing.

If it's a practice? Give me Lakeland or Dodger Town (RIP). But for gameday, as I learned on Wednesday? A night game at the perfect temperature (57 and lightly breezy) at Mini Yankee Stadium is an excellent show, and the venue has been reborn — with character — in the 20 years since I'd last seen the interior.

Here's what I picked up on from an absurdly tidy two-hour game where the Yankees faced the minimum (and this generation's troublemakers flitted about the ballpark begging for every baseball that rolled out of play, and even those that didn't).

Yankees Spring Training Notes from Ryan Weathers' filthy debut

• The streets are saying Ryan Weathers hit 99.8 MPH on a strikeout looking, the fastest pitch of his MLB career to date. I wouldn't know; the scoreboard didn't have a visible radar gun and was busted in myriad ways throughout the evening. Amed Rosario's leadoff home run registered around the second inning, but it only manifested as a run, not a hit, in the line score. When the Yankees put up three two-out runs while I was in the merch store, I called it a lie, only to check the app and find out the scoreboard was actually spot on. That's how they get you. Create a sheen of mistrust, then make it so the people don't know WHAT to believe! I'm onto you, Big Scoreboard.

• There's nothing odd about a manager having a pitch count on a spring training starter, but Aaron Boone pulling Weathers mid-AB made me think he had a round number on him. Nope! 49? What? Ideally, he just wanted to push Weathers close to the limit and get out. Seeing him come back out for the third surprised me, let alone the fourth.

• George Lombard Jr. finally did something for me! Twice! I'm not sure I've ever seen such an impressive prospect play so many nondescript games in a row in my presence, but Lombard Jr. burst out of the malaise he brought me in Fishkill and Somerset on Wednesday night. A couple nondescript ABs (walk and dribbler) led to a sterling barehanded play right in front of me at third base and a rocket double over the left fielder's head that rivals the hardest-hit balls I've ever seen from him (from afar). It's in there somewhere.

• Holy crow, the Washington Nationals' defense is not ready for primetime. "The first baseman's bad," my wife said as Clayton Beeter dropped a grounder, then airmailed a throw into somewhere 15 miles from the Right Field District. "Nah," I responded. "Everyone's bad."

• At one point, a noble 50-year-old man apologized profusely to a pair of kids for knocking a thrown baseball away from them with bad glovework. But the actual noble thing to do would've been to not go for the ball at all? Bruh?

• Kenedy Corona, of all people, was bold enough to challenge a ball-strike call ... and he did so because it was a good six inches above the zone. Some umpire is going to retire on the spot this year, if not also keel over and die.

• We bought tickets in Section 118. Seat Geek forgot to tell us Section 117 is the number one section in the entire ballpark for Wandering Around Aimlessly Outside Of.

• The Yankees faced the minimum, with only the single Weathers allowed in the third blemishing them whatsoever (erased on a double play). When's the last time you saw that from a spring training bullpen? It helps when you have David Bednar, Fernando Cruz, and Tim Hill behind you, but shoutout to polished young Kyle Carr for taking the baton.

• I've never had an Uber driver show up faster in my life than the dude who picked me up postgame. He was already pulled over to the side of the road. Feel like he might've also had a picture of me already in the car. Can't confirm that, though. After having so many 45-minute nightmares trying to leave stadiums, it was a refreshing change-of-pace to instead conjure a man out of thin air and bolt immediately.

• I heard a blood-curdling scream while leaving the stadium, but I think that was just Giancarlo Stanton trying to break a Cheez-It in half.

• The last thing I saw before going to sleep ahead of my 7:00 AM flight was Randal Grichuk signing. Kind of shocked we didn't pass him at the Tampa Airport. Next Cigar City's on me, Killer.