Healthy Glen Perkins Is Ready To Roll

Glen Perkins saw his 2014 season end on an injury note when he was shut down in late September with a forearm strain, and his 2015 spring started on another one: an oblique strain that has kept him out of action for the past couple weeks.

Frustrating?

"Yeah," he said. "But part of that is you can't control it."

On the bright side, all parties involved insist that the Twins closer and reigning All-Star is finally fully healthy. He threw a bullpen on Tuesday morning with no issues, and will pitch in a minor-league game Thursday. If all goes well, he'll make his first official spring appearance on Saturday.

There's no concern that he won't be ready for the start of the season.

"What is today, 17th? He should have ample time to get ready," Terry Ryan said on Tuesday.

Perkins, who played catch frequently to keep his arm loose while being sidelined, says he doesn't really even need all that time. "I think I could probably be OK right now. Get a couple games to get stuff right but I think I'll be in a good spot."

The elbow issues late last year were more worrisome than this spring's mild oblique strain, but an MRI at the time showed a "perfect" UCL and Perkins attributes the troubles to fatigue and wear-down.

With all that in the past, attention turns to just how the closer's role might change under a new manager.

Ron Gardenhire was always rather rigid with Perkins, using him almost exclusively in save situations outside of the occasional "getting his work in" appearance between such opportunities.

Many were disappointed to hear Molitor state last month that he planned to fall on the conventional side with his closer usage, but the manager was referring more to the idea of asking Perkins to get more than three outs in a game as opposed to stringently adhering to save situations. That makes sense after last autumn's fatigue issues.

Molitor told reporters on Wednesday that he's open to using Perk in tie games on the road, rather than waiting for his team to take a lead. That's something Gardy rarely did.

At one time, the whole thing put Perkins in a somewhat tough spot. As a rather enlightened baseball mind, the lefty knows that he can often help the team more by pitching outside of save situations -- say, to get the team out of a tough jam in the eighth, or in the aforementioned road situation -- but with baseball's misguided focus on the save, his status and financial potential were largely dependent on the statistic.

Perhaps that's one of the real silver linings of the team signing Perkins to an extension last spring that many deemed unnecessary. The closer is now locked in for the next three seasons, so he needn't worry about bolstering his market value.

"I'm past caring about saves and personal stats," he said. "I think that kind of peaked last year with that All-Star Game. That stuff is not really a focus at all."

That all sounds promising. But the real test will be what happens when Miguel Cabrera steps in with two runners on in the eighth inning of a one-run game. Will Molitor go to his bullpen ace to get the key outs if it means forgoing a possible save chance in the next inning?

That'd most likely be the right move, but it would also be a bold one, opening the rookie manager up to criticism from those who still believe in the traditional definition of a closer.

We shall see.