Friday, March 6, 2009

Friday, March 6th

Yesterday the Twins improved their spring record to a very impressive 6-2 on the season. The pitching continues to impress as the pitching staff came within 4 outs of a combined no-hitter. However, the hitting continues to be a problem because the Twins had only 3 hits until the 7th inning. It's way early to be concerned about the hitting, but you would like to see some progress as the spring continues.
  • Kevin Slowey was impressive again for the Twins going 3 perfect inning with 2 strikeouts. I was not high on him going into last season, but he has really proved me wrong. You could make an argument that he truly is the Twins ace right now and you wouldn't get a lot of argument from me. So there you go I admit I was wrong about Slowey. This spring he has pitched 5 shutout innings and looks like he is in midseason form already.
  • The hitting was another story as the starters only contributed 3 hits. Thats not to say there wasn't some good hitting performances. Dustin Martin continues to impress this spring with 2 more hits to lead the Twins. Toby Gardenhire put the Twins ahead to stay with a rbi single in the 7th inning.
  • Talk about a bad line for a pitcher. Dutch reliever Berry Van Driel faced 5 hitters and gave up 4 hits and walked a batter and gave up 3 runs.
  • Today, the Twins host the Cincinnati Reds as they get back into grapefruit league play. Glen Perkins tries to build on his solid spring thus far. Also expected to pitch are Jason Jones, Kevin Mulvey, Anthony Swarzak, Brian Duensing, and Craig Breslow. Gametime is at 12:05 in Fort Myers as the Twins try to build on their very good 6-2 spring record.

New Britain Rock Cats

I am going to project who I think will be on the New Britain roster to start the season. I wasn't sure about the catching situation as you could tell by my Rochester projections. Everyone let me know what you think of this.

C- Drew Butera
1st- Whit Robbins
2nd- Brian Dinkelman
SS- Steve Tolleson
3b- Danny Valencia
LF- Juan Portes
CF- Brandon Roberts
RF- David Winfree
DH- Erik Lis

Bench
Matt Moses
Toby Gardenhire
Edward Ovalle
Allan De san Miguel

Pitching
1. Jeff Manship
2. Jay Rainville
3. Oswaldo Sosa
4. Yohan Pino
5. Cole Devries

Bullpen
Closer- Anthony Slama
Zach Ward
Kyle Aselton
Blair Erikson
Matt Fox
Bobby Keppel
Spencer Steedley