After the night from hell, which included a late-night flight to Atlanta and then spending the next six hours (daylight savings time took one away for us) waiting in Atlanta’s airport trying to keep up with all the gate changes they made for our 7 a.m. flight to Tampa, we finally arrived in Clearwater, Florida.

We were able to get just enough sleep upon our arrival to have the energy to make our first trip to Bright House Networks Field to see another Phillies starting pitcher get roughed up. This was the second time for Kyle Kendrick struggled in a start this spring. The 23-year-old allowed six runs in his two innings of work on seven hits. Kendrick was 10-4 with an ERA of 3.84 last season when he started 20 games for the Fightin’s.

But let’s face it. This is spring training. The games don’t start counting until March, 31 when the Phils play host to the Nationals, and the players know this. Because these are all exhibition games the players don’t allow themselves to get too frustrated, concerned or upset about their performance if it doesn’t go too well in Florida. These games aren’t always played with the full starting squad so some of the chemistry is lost and won’t really be gained until these players have a feel for their new teammates.

On the dark side… Former Phillie Scott Rolen had two hits and scored a run against the Fightin’s and to my surprise the usually quiet Clearwater crowd boo’ed him every at bat. Kyle Kendrick’s spring ERA now sits at a pretty 16.43 after pitching 7 2/3 innings.

On the bright side… It was excellent news to see Ryan Howard belt a home run to right field off Jesse Litsch who is trying to make the Blue Jay’s fifth starting rotation spot. Howard always told the media in the days leading up to his arbitration hearing that it wasn’t impacting his mental health in terms of playing baseball and now we see that he was probably right. That being said, I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if the Phillies won the arbitration hearing and an unhappy Howard was walking around Clearwater. A Joe Inglett foul ball came our way which I was able to pull down off the stucco wall on the third base line as I stood on the concourse level.

The Phils will take on the Pirates today at 1:05 at the Pirates home field in Bradenton, FL at McKechnie Field. J.D. Durbin will take on Ian Snell.