Spring Training, Part I

***Ok, it's been awhile. It's been quite awhile. In fact, every day it gets harder to figure out something to write because it has to be perfect as a re-entry into starting to write again. This is why I stopped trying to be a screenwriter ... writer's block. So easy to just put down the pen. And you know what ... this post isn't anything special. But I don't care because I just need to start writing again, and nothing gives me the urge to write more than actually watching a baseball game, which is what I got to do today...

Spring is here. I don't think I officially realized that until I stumbled out of the car and walked like a man in a dream over to Hammond Stadium on Sunday. It was raining all morning and the drive from Naples to Ft. Myers was as grey and overcast as I've ever seen it, but I had to get my fix.

Walking up to the practice fields I saw how empty it was. Fans were milling around aimlessly, waiting for some sort of action, but due to the rain (and the fact that the MLB Player's Association was having their annual meeting as I found out later...) no one was out on the fields. The biggest draws were a shuffling little Wayne Hattaway, Dick Bremer in sandals and some sort of golf visor, and Roy Smalley walking around in a salmon color shirt that screamed Florida golf courses.

I did notice the Japanese media -- wandering around with tripods and cameras -- I can only imagine how many are going to be showing up to Target Field over the course of the year. There were also a lot of fans, walking around in Ichiro jerseys namely. At one point a Japanese man in a flashy suit and a nice head of hair snuck out from the Stadium restricted access area and fans immediately started crowding around him asking for autographs -- he obliged halfheartedly -- but it was not Nishioka. He was a reporter or likely a TV anchor of some sort, and I don't think anyone realized that for awhile. At the first sign of a Japanese man in a nice suit they just reacted. Kind of funny.

Eventually though the rain cleared and the players took to the fields for some practice before their game with Baltimore. I didn't have tickets but I needed to see some sort of baseball so I stuck around to watch practices until everyone filtered back into the stadium for the game. Some of the things I noticed:

- Joe Nathan looks great. It's great to see him moving around and smiling and happy... I think he's psyched to be back playing baseball and I wish him the best

- I don't know what everyone's worried about with Mijares and his weight. I saw him doing sprints on a backfield with Nathan and he was keeping pace pretty quickly. I've seen him much heavier previous springs, he actually looks like he could've lost some weight.

- Dmitri Young was walking around and it took me until reading notes from the Star Tribune and Phil Mackey to realize it. I knew he looked familiar and he was getting a lot of love from players as he walked around but I didn't put two and two together.

- The person I did notice was Jim Kaat. I had decided to get his autograph at Twins Fest this year and he was the first face other than Hattaway and Smalley that I saw, wandering out onto the fields before the players, decked out in Twins gear and obviously in some sort of supervisory role.

While I didn't get to see any baseball on Sunday, I ended up back at the stadium on Tuesday for the tilt against the Pirates. I dropped of Nick Nelson in the morning and went to go pick up Mr. Seth Stohs from the airport. Nick got there just in time to see Morneau, which I'm sure you can read about if you go over to his site -- the "B" game definitely seemed to have an A-list feel to it with the last minute addition of Morneau and the ability to see Slowey, Delmon and Kyle Gibson all on the same practice field, they had quite the crowd there watching some free baseball by the time Seth and I arrived.

Thanks to Nick Nelson's generosity and Parker Hageman's seating hookups we had some pretty awesome seats to watch the game...

I realize this is just a nice view of some umpire rear-ends, but believe me that's not what we were focusing on...

Pavano didn't look particularly stellar -- in fact outside of Kyle Waldrop there wasn't much to speak of in terms of pitching today. Pavano wasn't shaky really, but he didn't seem to have his best stuff, still feeling out some of his pitches and teasing his velocity. But he didn't look bad either.

None of the pitchers really looked bad -- Neshek was suitable in his inning but got hit pretty hard even though some of them went for outs. Outside of the long homerun to Overbay he had a warning track flyball that looked like a sure double until Ben Revere showed his amazing range and tracked it down for what would be a Sportscenter Top 10 play for sure if only they had been televising the game. He must've been sore after that, diving for it onto the dirt track, and got a rousing standing ovation on his way back to the dugout.

Danny Rams was the other star of the game for sure -- not only did he spook the hell out of me when he caught a pop fly right at the fence (all of us were staring up to make sure the ball didn't land at us over the backstop and when I followed it down he caught the ball right in front of my face). He also had some towering doubles that could've left the fence if they'd had just a little bit more carry. He's certainly got quite the bat, I can't wait to see where he ends up in the next couple of seasons because with the grasp for Holm and Rivera we could certainly use some strong catching depth and he's the one to watch in my book.

Nishioka also played in the game today -- the fans loved him, he's certainly going to be a treat to watch. He had a nice solid single and flashed a little leather over at 2nd base -- I feel pretty confident that he'll be able to at least hold his own in the Majors this year.

Unfortunately I couldn't get a good angle on him with the ump in the way...

It was good to see some of the other players like Tosoni, Benson, and Hughes as well -- all of whom I have some strong hopes for this year.

Anyway, look for some more posts to follow soon -- Seth and I are going to make an early morning trek up to the Lee County Sports Complex to catch some workouts from the people who stay behind on the roadtrip so hopefully we have some more pictures and stories to share soon!

(Definitely check out Nick and Seth's sites tomorrow as I see them writing as I'm going to bed and I'm sure they'll have some better stories to read -- I think you can find Seth's today at the Star Tribune Twins Centric page.)

Florida, Day 6 (Standing Room Only)

THURSDAY, MARCH 4th

This morning was the visitation for my grandfather before the funeral tomorrow, so it wasn't really a baseball day -- even if I had time to make it up to Ft. Myers afterwards I don't think it was in me to make the trip.

Thankfully it was a night game to kick off the season for the Twins so I was able to relax most of the afternoon before we made the trip up Tamiami Trail to City of Palms Park. I felt this kind of nervous giddiness the whole way -- this wasn't just a baseball game, this was the first game of the season. True it was about as meaningless as you could imagine (unless you really really want the Mayor's Cup), but there's just something exciting about baseball season starting, and the fact that it was outdoor night baseball is just magical.

But it makes my pictures blurry.... I need a new camera

We had four standing room only tickets, and so I drove up with my brother and two of my cousins to stand around in the cold and watch baseball. Thankfully, I remembered to bring a jacket. Unfortunately this time I wore shorts and sandals. One of these days I'll put all the puzzle pieces together on the same day.

By now you all know that the Red Sox won 2-1. This obviously means absolutely nothing. Half our starting lineup didn't touch the field, and we held the lead when we subbed in all our AAA players while the Red Sox kept most of their starters on the field until they took the lead.

Jacoby Ellsbury got way too much applause. So did Pedroia.

I really don't have much animosity towards Red Sox fans. For the most part they're all pretty nice and they're too obsessed with hating the Yankees to really have any vitriole towards my team so they're OK.

So, if you want to know play-by-play I'm sure you'll check out the boxscore, and my pictures aren't going to much of anything because I've just got a silly little camera, so I'll just give you my impressions from what I saw:

1. Our first five innings were dominant. The pitchers who pitched our first five innings were Blackburn, Slowey, and Neshek. When things went downhill was the 6th inning when Mike Maroth entered. So the important thing to me here is that our pitchers vying for an actual spot on the roster all were in top form tonight.

2. Blackburn was solid. There's not much to speak about there, he went about his pitches effectively and efficiently. Slowey seemed to take his time a little bit. He let the hitter get ahead of him a few more times than I would have liked but this can easily be attributed to plain rust. He was fooling hitters and working the strike zone which was what I wanted to see.

3. Neshek was quick and effective. It was great seeing that funky delivery out on the mound again. He had good velocity and good movement on his pitches and he was able to keep the hitters off balance. While they did connect their hits were primarily weak pop-ups.

4. Brendan Harris was manning the hot corner to start off the game. Unfortunately the first ball that came his way made its way through his glove. Sure he had to do a diving slide for it but he could have come up with that ball. It was the first inning of the first game so I'll cut him some slack, but it looked a little slow and lazy. We got out of the inning so it didn't matter in the longrun, but for someone battling for that 3rd base job it was a knock.

That's Harris. My zoom sucks.

5. Casilla and Tolbert were both up the middle, and neither are guaranteed a spot on the roster. They both were fine in the field so I can't really speak much to my impressions of them. They had a pretty light day the few innings that they were in. The guy who made a couple nice plays was Jacque Jones. He really showed some wheels out in left and took great routes (something I haven't seen in left for a couple years...). I really like the guy and I'd love for him to make the roster, but hopefully at least he sticks around in Rochester and can be a September call-up for us or something.

6. Ben Revere is a stud. A pure stud. When he trotted out onto the field I was so excited to see him play. I was telling my cousins all about him and how much potential Revere has. Then the announcer said that "Zack Davis" was entering the game for the Twins and I stopped and for the life of me I felt like such a fool that here I was talking about Ben Revere and it was this guy named Zack Davis who I had never heard of! Two batters later the announcer corrected himself and I was justified. Revere can cover some ground. I can see what the worry is about his arm. The ball doesn't really zip from his hand the way it does from Cuddyer or Young, it seems to float a little bit longer. Not really going to speculate how that happens, maybe his wrist is a little loose when he throws? I know he's not a power hitter either, but he sure drove the ball to the warning track in what looked like a sure home run until he was robbed at the track.

Those are the main things that stick out to me from the game.

Oh and cotton candy.

One thing that really sticks out is how many people leave the game after the 5th or so when all the starters get pulled.

It's a veritable exodus.

The stadium was so packed there was no room to stand along the wall for our standing room only tickets, but by the 5th there were seats and tons of spots along the wall opened because everyone had streamed out. We were able to stand right behind home plate!

But we were still standing. And it was still cold.

Here's a couple other random pictures that I took which I couldn't work into this entry but also kind of came out non-blurry:

I'll hopefully have some better shots during Saturday's game. I'm going to be sitting in the first row along the Twins' side of the field so check back for that post. Friday is the funeral and reception and a family dinner at the Naples Yacht Club so it will be baseball-less. But stop by later to find out about Saturday's game (I believe Liriano is starting?!?!?!).

Random shot of me in my lucky Aguilera jersey, my new Facebook profile picture to get me through Spring:

"Twins Bloggers: Get to Know 'Em" presents Pat Neshek!

Today I am honored to be able to present Pat Neshek as our Get to Know 'Em finale! Obviously Pat needs no introduction, everyone knows him as a hometown hero playing for our team, a lights out relief pitcher with a funky delivery, and one of the fan-friendliest ballplayers to ever grace a diamond.

But to top it off, Neshek strikes a particular chord with bloggers for his online accessibility: encouraging people to send in for autographs and trade cards, running his own blog, and even launching his own online campaign for the All-Star vote a couple years back. I'm sure everyone has already checked out his website, but if not, make sure to bookmark it. But enough rambling, I'll let Pat speak for himself, just enjoy the survey and revel in the taste of spring training just around the bend! (I've changed around some of my standard questions...)

Personal-

WEBSITE: www.neshek.com

BIRTHDAY: 9/4/80

HOMETOWN: Madison, WI

FAVORITE COLOR: Forest Green

FAVORITE FOOD: Pad Thai

FAVORITE MOVIE: The Pianist

FAVORITE BOOK: All Quiet On The Western Front

FAVORITE TYPE OF MUSIC: Metal - Metalcore

FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH OTHER THAN BASEBALL: College Basketball, NHL

FAVORITE SPORT TO PLAY OTHER THAN BASEBALL: Hockey

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE VIKINGS/TIMBERWOLVES/WILD: I don't watch football, No KG no watching for me, went up to Tampa last week and watched the Wild lose & it wasn't fun

General Baseball-

WHAT MAKES BASEBALL SO GREAT TO YOU: It's got a little of everything in life and it's a game anyone can relate to or play.

IF YOU HAD TO FOLLOW ANOTHER TEAM, WHICH AND WHY: The Pirates, I liked watching Garrett Jones hit bombs this year

BEST EXPERIENCE AT A BALLPARK OTHER THAN THE DOME: 7/7/06, my mlb debut in Arlington, Texas

FAVORITE PLACE TO PLAY ON THE ROAD: I like Oakland & KC

ANY BAD EXPERIENCES ON THE ROAD?: Just being away from home isn't fun

OPINION ON INTERLEAGE PLAY: Like it, they need to switch it up so we play every team in the NL ... seems like we get the same teams back every couple years.

OPINION ON THE UNBALANCED SCHEDULE: I like it, I would like to play our division just a little less and play other teams outside the division more.

FAVORITE NON-TWINS PLAYER IN BASEBALL HISTORY: Rusty Meacham, he was an autograph machine

LEAST FAVORITE PLAYER IN BASEBALL HISTORY: Shawn Green, when I was 15 at the dome he was throwing a ball to a kid my age and I jumped in front of him and stole it. He yelled at me. The next inning he threw the kid a ball again and snarled at me. The next day I went for his autograph in the front row and he took my pen, signed for 10 different people and gave me my pen back at the end and smiled ... When I faced him in '07 I wanted to bean him but I didn't do it, I think I went full count on him then he ripped a liner into center ... I wanted the pitch back.

WHAT OTHER POSITIONS DID YOU PLAY GROWING UP: SS

WHAT COACHES/PLAYERS HAVE HAD THE MOST IMPACT ON YOU DEVELOPING: Probably my high school coach Jeff Stoll, my dad, my summer HS coach Pete Lacock and my college coach Steve Farley

HOW DID YOU CHOOSE BUTLER FOR COLLEGE: Offered a Full Scholarship during the 1st signing period, they said I would be a starter and get over 50 innings ... Couldn't turn that down.

Twins Generic-

WHEN DID YOU BECOME A TWINS FAN AND WHY: Probably when I went to my 1st game in 1985

WHAT WAS DRAFT DAY LIKE FOR YOU BACK IN '02: I just remember being angry as the rounds went by ... then in the 6th round I said if I didn't get picked I probably will not sign ... lucky for me I was picked. I just couldn't believe some of the names picked ahead of me. I want to find all those scouts now and laugh in their faces, I think the draft is a joke and there are tons of guys that never get a fair shake.

BEST EXPERIENCE AT THE DOME: Too many, I love that place

BEST EXPERIENCE AT TWINS FEST/WINTER CARAVAN: Getting invited in 2002 after the draft ... I wanted to walk out because they had me signing with Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones ... I was like "why did I sign up for this", nobody knows who I am.

WHAT WAS SPRING TRAINING LIKE BEFORE YOU HIT THE MAJORS: Minor league spring training is short but the days go forever. My first mlb spring training was fun because you got a little bit more respect and felt like you deserved to be there. Basically to me it was my chance to show everyone what I had.

HOW HAS IT CHANGED SINCE YOU'VE MADE THE MAJORS: It's a lot more relaxed because people know who you are and what you can do and you don't have to worry about getting cut for the most part.

DO YOU HAVE ANY MOMENTS THAT STILL STICK WITH YOU FROM THE MINORS: Once again too many ... Basically every emotions you can think of you go through. There's lots of self doubt, there's absolute excitement and happiness ... I'll always remember the times getting called up. Probably the biggest memory I will remember is getting sent down in 2004 and how mad it made me feel.

Player Specific-

FAVORITE TWINS PLAYER IN HISTORY: Puckett

DID YOU EVER MEET ANY PLAYERS GROWING UP: I met most of the teams but my favorite was meeting Puckett in 1985 and getting his autograph

PLAYER YOU'D MOST LIKE TO WATCH A GAME WITH: Tony Gwynn

PLAYER YOU'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: Carlos Silva because he eats a ton and always pays for the meal!

PLAYERS YOU'D WANT TO BE THE FRONT MEN OF YOUR NEW BAND: All the sidearm guys in the league, Joe Smith, Cla Meredith and submariner Darren O'Day

PLAYER YOU'D ASK FOR HELP ON A SCIENCE LAB: Slowey

DO YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ANY FORMER TWINS PLAYERS WHO'VE MOVED ON: Mostly on facebook

EXPECTATIONS OF TARGET FIELD: It will be nice having new things like the clubhouse and the weight room but it's going to be too cold for me to like it.

EXPECTATIONS FOR THE TEAM NEXT YEAR: Win the division again

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A huge thanks to Pat for closing out our Get to Know 'Em offseason series! What a team we have when players take time like this for their fans!

I will actually have one final Get to Know 'Em post on Monday. I've caved to pressure and will subject myself to answering my own survey...

A Return To Dominance?

As Twins fans, we've come to realize a painful tendency these past couple of years that previously we had been blissfully unaware of. In baseball, I would argue that there's nothing more deflating or devastating than a blown save; to take that a step further, losing a game because of a shoddy pitching job in the bullpen is just flat out unacceptable.

Under the guidance of Rick Stelmaszek and Rick Anderson, the Twins bullpen was dominant since our team's resurgence from obscurity in the early part of this past decade. Thanks in large part to name like Eddie Guardado, Juan Rincon, JC Romero, Grant Balfour, and several other since-departed Twins.

One of the things I think we all took for granted was being able to see our name consistently up there with the Los Angeles Angeles as having one of the best records in baseball when ahead after 7 innings.

Several other bloggers have pointed out that the Twins pitching woes this past year are perhaps mistakenly put on the shoulders of our rotation. I'm not quite sure that's the case -- they weren't particularly worse than they've been in the past (with the notable exception of not having Santana of course), but our bullpen offered absolutely no relief -- no pun intended -- and our starters were naturally forced to go longer and perhaps face more trouble than previously accustomed.

That changes this year.

Beginning in August and September we saw the bullpen begin to turn a corner, and we have every reason to expect that this trend should continue, which in itself will be a huge boon to our rotation and to our collective heartbeats as the game gets into later innings.

Obviously there's our star:

Joe Nathan is about as good as they come. At the end of the season I think everyone was cringing when they saw him come in, but we can't put all the failure on his shoulders. Those were some heartbreaking losses, but for every blown save he had at least 10 times where he was a rockstar. First off, late inning save situations are naturally tense. And Nathan's tweaks and quirks and twitches are a little scary to watch too. But for 95% of the games he's put in, he'll dominate. He deserves the benefit of the doubt as a model of consistency.

Mijares & Guerrier are at the very least league-average relievers, and when they're on point they're much better. Mijares is a power arm from the leftside with the ability to make batters look silly. He has a bad tendency of pitching off the plate and letting batters coax favorable counts against him before either ultimately walking them or coming back with a piece of cheese that gets lifted into the seats. But those bad moments are the ones that stick out, and numbers don't lie: 2.34 ERA and 1.056 WHIP and a 60-23 K-BB ratio in 2009 is not something to scoff at. Guerrier is almost the opposite of Mijares. Guerrier relies less on power than control and guile. This past year his numbers look a little flukey, and so I was an advocate for trading him (and still am because I think his value will never be higher), but he's also been a model of consistency, as shown by the fact that he is always one of the league leaders in appearances out of the bullpen. That's actually one of the biggest fears: that he's so consistent that he'll be overused. No complaints from me if that's the worst thing I can say about him.

Jon Rauch is the kind of pitcher that I'm sure has batters quivering at the plate. He looks like he's either going to hit you in the face with a baseball or a beer bottle, and neither would be pleasant. Down the stretch he was one of the most clutch performers out of our 'pen, and if he has a good supporting cast around him he'll be able to keep slinging at full strength right into October. A big guy like that is a good asset on the mound (and he's not even the biggest guy in our system...)

Pat Neshek is unbelievably awesome. Not only is his delivery one of the coolest things to watch, but the fact that no one can seem to touch him makes it even better. The biggest question mark here is how effective he'll be coming back from injury. We should know this pretty quickly in spring training, but the thought is that sometime during the season he'll be able to step in and provide that electric spark that made him so nasty in his debut. I think we all know he can do that, the only question is how soon.

Clay Condrey makes Bobby Keppel look like the career minor leaguer we know he should be. One of the biggest concerns last year for me is how long we stuck with him when his sinker stopped sinking -- it seemed like he was holding blackmail over Gardy and Smith that allowed him a permanent place on the active roster. This year, that's changed. (What is a Ham Fighter?) Condrey was a key piece of the Phillies bullpen during the regular season, and I can't explain why he didn't see the light of day during the postseason, but it speaks more to the Phillies' depth than anything bad about Condrey. The one thing here is that we shouldn't expect him to come in and be the next Joe Nathan, but he's at least league average and should be a much better mop-up guy and able to keep the games from getting out of hand, which is more than I could say for Keppel.

Jesse Crain is a guy that everyone loves to hate this offseason. I think that's more in part for the fact that he struggled at the beginning of the season and kept getting trotted out there. Thankfully the Twins wised up and let him fix things in the minors, and in the second half of the season he was amazing. He had a 2.91 ERA, 1.206 WHIP, and a 30-15 K-BB ratio and he generally seemed a lot more confident. The biggest problem is that we're paying through the nose for him, but that's more the fact that we signed him to a stupid contract than that he's a bad pitcher. If he's the weakest link in our pen, it's a pretty strong pen.

Other options? We have plenty. The Duensing/Perkins/Liriano/Manship/Swarzak 5-headed monster will undoubtedly see some time in the 'pen, and it's not because they can't cut it in a rotation but just because we have too many people logjamming! This in fact makes it hard for some of our best prospects, who are currently idling away in Rochester and will sadly probably start the year back there. The one that I'd like to see break camp with the Twins but fully expect to be a fresh, lights-out, sparkplug down the stretch: Anthony Slama.

He was named the Twins minor league pitcher of the year in '08 when he dominated the FSL with Fort Meyers. He had a 1.01 ERA with a 0.944 WHIP and a 110-24 K-BB ratio. He's calmed down a little bit since then but still continues to be the best option out of the pen in each stop that he makes in our system.

In summary? Despite getting rid of Boof Bonser and not retaining Keppel or Mahay, the Twins will have a plethora of serviceable arms to stock our pen. And if anyone is ineffective or gets injured, there should be plenty of options to remedy the situation with. Not only will this shore up what's been an Achilles heel for the Twins the past couple of years, but it will undoubtedly make our rotation better as they'll be able to hand off the ball with more confidence.

This is our bullpen's return to dominance. And it's been much needed.