The Twins rotation for opening day became clear after Francisco Liriano’s last spring start on Friday and Scott Baker’s minor league start on Sunday.  Ron Gardenhire announced Francisco Liriano was optioned to the Twins Class A Fort Myers to start the season. Francisco pitched well on Friday throwing 73 pitches in 5 innings with 7 strikeouts, 2 base on balls, and 3 hits, one being a homerun. Kelly Thesier wrote in her article that Francisco is expected to make one start in Class A, make a start for Class AAA Rochester, then maybe join the Twins. Gardy wants to get Liriano up to throwing around 100 pitches. It will be interesting to see if Francisco does join the Twins after two starts or if the Twins will wait to see which of the starters isn’t making the grade over the month of April.

Scott Baker pitched well enough in his minor league start on Sunday and will jump on the end of the Twins rotation and start the series against Kansas City. In his start Baker threw 71 pitches over 6 innings giving up 6 hits, no walks with 3 strikeouts. Baker should be able to get more strength back after his extended bout with the flu by the time he makes his first start,

The Twins will start the season with Livan Hernandez, Boof Bonser, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey and Scott Baker.

Carlos Gomez came out of today’s spring training game against the Tampa Bay Rays in the top of the 5th inning after making a catch in center field. After he made the catch he bent over grabbing his lower hamstring area behind his left knee. Reports by Dan Gladden during the radio broadcast indicated Carlos sustained a left hamstring cramp.

Joe Christensen got word from a clubhouse staffer after the game that Carlos told him “I want to play tomorrow, Friday and Saturday,” so at least Carlos is talking like it’s nothing that will keep him down.

Doing a little digging in Carlos’ history I found that he had a left hamstring injury in May of 2007. That injury only kept in out 3 days and then he was back and playing for the Mets without missing any games again.

The Twins just announced today that they have signed Joe Nathan to a to a deal through 2011 with a club option for 2012. Terms were not disclosed in the release but Twins play-by-play announcer John Gordon was reporting at one point in today’s broadcast that the deal was 4 years and 44 million.

A set of Twins fans that tend to be on the pessimistic side of things don’t think it’s worth signing a closer when the Twins are in the midst of rebuilding after unloading Torii Hunter and Johan Santana. Why waste the cash if the team can’t even get a lead to Nathan?

The case for signing Joe Nathan is quite simple though for the Twins. They need to sign an asset like Joe Nathan if they can do it at a fair price. Then if they decide down the road that they want to trade him, they can get fair value in return. We should have learned in the Santana and Hunter fiasco’s that you are more likely to get what you want in a trade if you have your guy locked up for a while.

So do I think the Twins will trade Nathan? No. I think the Twins believe they are close to contending and paying Joe this year is something that is worth it. I agree with this move. It looks like they do have a plan and are building towards a run in 2010.

La Velle E Neal III is reporting that Denard Span,  Brian Buscher, Jason Pridie, and Philip Humber have all been optioned to Class AAA Rochester this morning. That means Carlos Gomez will start the year out in center field this year and Matt Tolbert will make the squad as a utility player.

Denard Span had a nice spring training but Carlos Gomez just shows so much more of an upside. Carlos will be a bit raw in center and over-matched at times at the plate, but he will no doubt provide excitement and speed we have never seen in a Twins uniform. There is a legitimate chance that Carlos could break Chuck Knoblauch’s stolen base record of 62 in 1997 for the Twins.

Coming into spring training this year odds were that Brian Buscher would make the team as a backup 3rd baseman and utility guy. Brian just didn’t get things going this spring though batting just .143 with a .250 OBP and .229 SLG. With Buscher not stepping up it was Matt Tolbert that caught the eyes of Ron Gardenhire and is showing solid all around play and ability to play many positions. Matt is batting .250 this spring with a .314 OBP and .281 SLG.

The 25 man roster is about sewn up now, just a couple pitching spots to solidify. The biggest question that remains now is whether Francisco Liriano will make the rotation. There is also question about whether Scott Baker will be ready for the start of the season after a bit of a set back with a sore back and a bout of the flu. My guess is he will be ready and jump into the end of the rotation coming out of Spring. I also think Liriano will get his pitch count up enough to make it. That would give the Twins a rotation of Hernandez, Bonser, Baker, Liriano and Slowey.

Reports have come out that the competition for the Twins starting center field spot is now only between Carlos Gomez and Denard Span. It makes sense that Jason Pridie is out of the race seeing how Gomez and Span each have 7 starts in center compared to Pridie’s 2. Pridie is being looked at as a possible 4th outfielder and is usually coming into games in all outfield positions as a backup. Gomez and Span have alternated at center in the last 4 games and only Span(not Gomez) is on the trip for todays matchup against so that continues the alternating trend for now.

Here’s a look at their stats so far this spring. Keep in mind these numbers don’t include 2 B games and one rain out that had 4.5 innings in.

 HITTING

FIELDING 

It’s hard to come to any conclusions with a limited number of AB’s but the big thing is that sticks out is the on-base percentage. Span is at a .435 vs Gomez’ .167. In the minors with 1291 at-bats Carlos has a .278 AVG /  .339 OBP . / .399 SLG. Denard’s minor league stats show 1939 AB’s with .283 AVG / .350 OBP / .348 SLG.  In 125 AB’s with the Mets Carlos had a .232 AVG / .288 OBP / .304 SLG. Gomez obviously has not been able to bring his moderate minor league success into the majors or this year’s spring training with him.

So here’s the deal. Gomez has a huge upside with his speed and athleticism. If the Twins can get him on base with any amount of success his speed and fielding will be fantastic. The Twins want him to win the spot. Span does not show this kind of upside but he can at least get on base at this point. If Carlos can’t figure out how to get on base in any consistent way this spring I don’t see how he can start the season in center for the Twins. Span will have to start the year in center and Carlos will go down to AAA to get things sorted out. And that’s exactly what I think will happen. I don’t think carlos will figure things out at the plate quickly enough, Gomez will go down to AAA and Span will get to start the year at CF. I don’t think Pridie will make the 25 man roster, Monroe will get that spot with Kubel at DH.

Francisco Liriano got his 2nd start of the spring and didn’t fare so well. Francisco made it through 2+ innings today against the Red Sox and gave up 3 earned runs with 4 hits and 2 base on balls. Francisco said he didn’t have command of his pitches but did work up to throwing at 90-95% of full throttle. He also said he think he will be ready for t he rotation by end of the spring. Probably the best thing we heard  was that Francisco felt great after the game. Below is francisco’s line. Boxscore

Scott Baker’s sore back is going to keep him out longer than once thought. Ron Gardenhire said Scott would not be able to make the start in a minor league game this weekend as they had hoped. It all started in the Boston game on March 3rd he felt a tweak in his back. During his next start against Pittsburgh, Baker experienced tightness in his back and they shut him down after two innings and decided to have Nick Blackburn get the next start in Baker’s place.

This doesn’t sound like a major injury but Joe Christensen has quotes of coaches saying things like:

"Pitching coach Rick Anderson “says if this goes on for another week or so, we’re going to have to start making other plans,” Gardenhire said. “That’s what we’ve got to find out, whether, it’s going to push on.”

Hopefully he just misses the one start and can come back for the next one. Will keep you posted.

The Twins yesterday released their newest TV ad of their 2008 Twins Territory campaign titled Park Center featuring Minnesota’s own Pat Neshek. In this spot Pat gets zero respect from the youth of own high school alum as the kids can only ask about Joe Mauer. Pat’s grand total of words he speaks in this ad is a whopping ONE word: cheese?. It comes in reply to a girl asking What;s Joe’s favorite kind of cheese?

Sorry Pat, you deserved a better script in your starring role. This spot gets a thumbs down but Pat gets an A- for fine facial expressions and body language. For those wondering, the ad doesn’t reveal Joe’s favorite kind of cheese but my guess is it’s something exotic like KRAFT American.

By the way Pat Neshek has a personal blog at patneshek.com. Pat updates his blog fairly often, writing about his pitching, autographs, the Twins, mlb, hockey and personal tid-bits. He does a nice job sharing an inside glimpse of his life in baseball. Maybe Pat will clue us in on his favorite cheese….

For the record, my favorite cheese is pepperjack.

Livan Hernandez had a tough outing in today’s Twins win 8-7 over the Baltimore Orioles in a Spring Training game at Hammond Stadium. Livan’s line was

• On a positive note Delmon Young is heating up going 3 for 3 and getting his average up to .615. Delmon also knocked in 2 runs.
• Craig Monroe saw action today again after sitting out much of this early spring with a sore calf muscle. Craig went 2 for 2 and drove in 2 runs also.
• Alexi Casilla stole his 4 base of the spring and went 1 for 2 bringing his average up to .333

Check out todays boxscore of the Twin 8-7 win over the Orioles.

I just saw on the MLB Transaction list that the A’s have signed former Twin Matt LeCroy to a minor league contract. This comes as a result of A’s minor league catcher Jeremy Brown retiring for personal reasons and the A’s would like another catcher in spring training. Chances are slim that Matt will get a season long gig out of the deal.