Intro:

Defending World Series champions the San Francisco Giants began their Spring Training season on Saturday (23 February) with a match-up against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English, on Spring Training looking different when players are out for the WBC) Bruce Bochy, San Francisco Giants manager: "But even with us it's going to hard once we lose our guys to put some names out there that some people recognise and it's going to be a little bit of a different spring because of the WBC. But regardless you're getting ready for a season. We talked about it on our side - it's going to force us to play some guys and get a good look at them."

SOUNDBITE: (English, on the difficulty of sending 10 players to the WBC) Bruce Bochy, San Francisco Giants manager: "Not tough really. We have the luxury of bringing most of the club back so these guys know each other, played well with each other last year. That's not an area where we'll be concerned. We've got a great bunch here and the guys that are leaving know that they've got to keep working."

SOUNDBITE : (English, the excitement of playing games again and his outing today) Sergio Romo, San Francisco Giants: "I actually felt really good. I was more excited than anything to be honest. So I think my arm definitely felt fine. My body felt good. The only thing about it was I was just really, really excite to get back out there. Some live hitters - you forget a little bit through the off-season what the adrenaline rush feels like. I told (pitching coach Dave) Righetti on the way out, 'thanks for pitching me.' He was like, 'why?' I was like, 'yeah, I needed that.' He was like,'why?' I said, 'legitimately? I was really excited I really, really needed that."