BREAKING: Jose Berrios Named Twins Opening Day Starter

Well deserved!

Hope it's the first of many. Game on La Makina!

Congrats to him!

He'll make a fine opening day opener. I hope he closes opening day too!

That would be great, but it would take a very good and unlikely set of circumstances to actually occur. With all the days off in the early season there's no reason to push a starter much beyond 80-90 pitches.

Congrats to Berrios and I'm damn excited about Opening Day.

Now can we stop calling every non-opinion piece "breaking news"?

That's right, I forgot Odorizzi was last year's opener, but that was due to Berrios being set up to pitch a game in Costa Rica. Hopefully this will be the first of many more Opening Day starts for him.

Uh... Puerto Rico I think you mean

That would be great, but it would take a very good and unlikely set of circumstances to actually occur. With all the days off in the early season there's no reason to push a starter much beyond 80-90 pitches.

Unless it is a close game and he is still pitching really well.

He would've got the call last year, but he wanted to pitch in the Puerto Rico series - I think everyone understood that. Didn't Odorizzi end up pitching on Opening Day?

I'm not sure this qualifies as some sort of breaking news ... or even important news. Not to make light of the team's decision. Obviously, Berrios deserves to be named the opening game starter. Kudos to the kid. But what was the purpose of announcing this decision the first week in March? What's the urgency? I'm baffled. The only thing I can figure is that the team wants to make sure that Berrios knows that he's important to them, and ... ahem ... maybe we can get that contract extension settled this month while we're at it. Otherwise, not really a surprising or earth-shaking announcement.

Should've been Willians!

He's the guy to put there, yeah.

In other news, the water in the ice tray will turn to ice after we put it in the freezer.

Looking out my window at 30" of snow on the ground.

No real break in temps through March 18th.

So, it is possible that Target Field is somehow playable that week, but the rest of the Midwest is going to be buried in snow.

Not sure why they think scheduling a March opener in Minneapolis is such a great idea.

Hey!  We can organize a ski to Target Field that day. Brilliant!

TF is designed to be playable in the snow and ice, but it's smarter to play elsewhere for as long as possible to start the season so as to maximize home field revenue. Just because they can play doesn't mean fans will show up.

It is what it is. The MLB makes an effort to have midwestern teams play elsewhere to start the season, but it doesn't work out for every team every year.

Not sure why they think scheduling a March opener in Minneapolis is such a great idea.

 

Here's what I have read from various sources at various times:

1. The most recent CBA calls for more days off during the course of the season. This necessitated the earliest opening day ever.

2. The presence of the NCAA men's basketball Final Four in Minneapolis means the Twins need to be away during the second, third and fourth series of the season.

2a. MLB knows it's not fair to have a team open with four straight road series.

3. It's not fair to have warm weather teams open at home every year.

4. No other MLB stadium is better equipped than Target Field to handle cold weather games.

That still doesn't necessarily make it a great idea, but that's why it is going to happen.

Yeah...there's a very good chance the weather will be such that we'd rather not have Berrios (or anyone that figures prominently...or anyone, period) pitching. After the opening series, the Twins don't come back until the 12th. It's hard to figure how sneaking those 3 games in front of that in March benefits anyone.

He's the guy to put there, yeah.

 

In other news, the water in the ice tray will turn to ice after we put it in the freezer.

And if you drop the tray and the ice cubes shatter, that would be breaking news.

Well, do you have any chance of winning the Division title?

Well, do you have any chance of winning the Division title?

Who me? Not really.

The Twins? Probably not, but it's not impossible.