Friday, March 14, 2008

Friday, March 14th

Yesterday, Jesse Crain got hit by a line drive in the knee while pitching in a minor league game. Hopefully it is not serious and he can get back to pitching for twins very soon. The Twins lost a tough 3-1 game to the Orioles yesterday in which Nick Blackburn struggled in his first start this spring for the Twins. That 5th starter position has not been very good this spring with none of the contenders really pitching very good. just look at the stats:

Kevin Slowey: 2 starts 1-0 8.10 era 6.2 innings with 15 hits and 6 runs

Glen Perkins: 2 starts 1-1 6.75 era 8.0 innings with 12 hits and 6 runs

Nick Blackburn: 1 start 0-1 3.86 7.0 innings with 3 hits and 3 runs
Right now i would say the favorite is Blackburn but its way too early to say because none of them have really earned the spot and they each will still have 2-3 starts left to win that job so it will be interesting who will take it.
In center Field it looks very similiar to the 5th starter job that nobody is ready to take the position. Carlos Gomez is only hitting .148 while Denard Span is hitting a robust .227. Neither one of them have done anything to seperate themselves and i think the twins should seriously consider going with Craig Monroe in Center and keep Jason Pridie as the 4th outfielder because its pretty obvious the other 2 are not ready to be in the major leagues right now. They would have Monroe's bat in the lineup and they could replace him with Pridie late in games for defense if thats what they want to do i think its worth considering.
Today, the Twins face Pittsburgh in Fort Myers today with Boof Bonser making his 3rd of the spring. He has probably had the best spring of all our pitchers so hopefully he can keep it going today and someone will step up in center field.