Thrylos

Josh pitched tonight at Burlington, NC against the Royals. He came in the sixth inning in relief of Hudson Boyd with a runner on third and no outs. He gave a single to 24 year old Cameron Conner (the Royals' 20th round pick in 2010) which scored the runner. The next hitter, also 24 years old, Jose Rodriguez (the Royals'27th round pick in 2010) walked. Terrance Gore (Royals' 20th round pick in 2011) struck out and Kenny Diekroeger (the Royals' 4th round pick in 2012) grounded out to second. That hit was the first hit surrended in Josh's pro career. He came in for the seventh and got 23 year old Chris Elder (undrafted free agent, signed in 2011) to pop out to 3B. The next batter, Patrick Leonard (the Royal's 5th round pick in 2011) got his 4th homer of the season to LF. Next batter, Mark Threlkeld (Royals' 25th round pick in 2011) reached on a two base throwing error by 3B Travis Harrison. Josh hit the next batter, Beau Maggi (Royals' 24th round pick in 2012) to set up the double play. Then he got the next batter, Henry Moreno (Royals' international free agent signee in 2007 from the Dominican) to ground into a force out, 3B to 2B moving up the other runners Mark Threlkeld to 3rd. Then he struck out Cameron Conner to end the inning. This was the first HR surrended and the first earned run of Josh's pro career. In the 8th, he got Jose Rodriguez to line out to third. Terrance Gore bunted for a single to 3B and Josh, rightfully, picked him off 1B. He struck out the next batter Kenny Diekroeger. All in all a great inning. Final line: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 PO. 6 K and 1 BB in 5.2 IP total and a season 1.59 ERA and WHIP around 0.8xx. So far a very encouraging start to his career.

2 picks. Type A like Cuddyer... Big mistake by the interim. Yeah I do mean the arbitration clock. And I am more optimistic about Robertson than you are

He is signed/agreed. BA is late to update their Database.

L Looks like the Twins lost a golden opportunity to trade Blackburn and Nishioka for Youkilis...

Re-signing Capps to an above market contract and losing 2 draft picks in the process is another feather on the cap of the interim GM. Not that this would have made much difference this season, but losing the 2 draft picks could hurt (more) in the future. I don't get how the Twins are evaluating players, esp. when re-signing their own free agents. Not sure who will come up. Maybe nobody. Pavano (another great re-sign, btw) might decide to get off the DL one of these years. They could have up to 26 players in the upcoming doubleheader and DicknBert indicated that a AAA pitcher (Cole DeVries anyone?) will come up to start one of the 2 games. The only issue I have with Duensing starting is that he is limited to 60 pitchers so you really have both him and Swarzak out of the game for a while. Other than that, the 2013 rotation projects to be such a mess, that it would not hurt to have tryouts during the season. Malloney has been stinking up the place in AAA, I do not see how they recall him. Might be a nice thing for Robertson, but that would make his clock ticking...

I'll take some fries with that... Why not?

If you were treated like him while lesser pitchers who were also not producing were treated better by the same club (Mr Nicholas Blackburn comes to mind,) would you like to stay? I just don't get how the Twins are treating certain players vs. others. Seems to definitely be a large variability and it is not merit-based to say the least. This has to change.

A As measured by? The Twins have been on the bottom of most hitting categories for ages. Part of it was Scotty and then he was beamed up to 3rd base and Vavra took over. Still futility. I don't know how you define "terrific", but it more like horrific to me...

Will never happen. Here is the biggest issue (math) : a. 30-25=5 x 500,000 = $2.5 Million more (give or take) per club per season b. the arbitration/free agency clock will start a season earlier for at least 5 (the extra 5) players. Add a few trips to the DL and the number of players with accelerated arbitration/FA clocks will be more like 8-10. So I suspect total $ impact around $5-7 Million per season per club. The Players' Association would love it. The owners not so much

A "thigh bruise" is a type of a "quad injury". Given the competency of the Twins' medical staff to treat injuries well and the transparency of the management to communicate about injuries, I suspect that we do not know the seriousness of this.

Tonight was Josh Burris' first professional appearance with the Elizabethton Twins against the Danville Braves, at Danville, VA. He pitched a perfect inning against the Braves' 1-2-3 hitters and struck out a batter (Levi Hyams, the Braves' 19th round pick in 2012). His other 2 outs were a flyout to LF (Casey Kalenkosky, the Braves' 30th round pick in 2012) and a ground out, SS to 1B (Trenton Moses, the Braves' 26th Round pick in 2012). Josh came in relief of Corey Kimes who lasted 4 innings. He came back for the 6th inning and it was another perfect inning with another strike out, facing the heart of the Braves' lineup. 4th place hitter Edison Sanchez (one of the big Latin American signings of Atlanta in 2007 from Venezuela) struck out, 5th place hitter Aris Alcantara (Dominican, another 2007 Braves' signee) grounded out second to first and 6th spot hitter Felix Marte (Dominican, yet another 2007 Braves' signee) grounded out 3B (Niko Goodrum tonight there btw) to 1B. So Burris took care of the 2012 Draft picks in his first inning and the 2007 international free agent signees in his second inning. He came back for his 3rd inning in the 7th and he repeated his 6th inning performance: A strikeout (Logan Robins, Altlanta's 2011 10th round pick) and 2 ground outs (Nick DeSantiago, Atlanta's 2011 5th round pick, and Eric Garcia, Altlanta's 2012 20th round pick.) That was his day: 3 perfect IP with 3Ks (5 GO to 1 AO) and because the Twins scored 6 runs, while he was pitching, Josh got his first professional win as well. Very common in the Rookie leagues to have 2 "starters" on each game pitching 3-4 innings each one after another, and I know that there were considerations to have Josh Burris start. We'll see how the season develops, but this was a heck of a pro debut.

By whom? by the ones who re-signed Pavano to a ridiculous contact and gave Blackburn that also ridiculous contact? Duensing's numbers as a starter and against RHB were not there. Ok. They were better than Blackburn's while they were both starting, I'll give you that

Duensing will be the tenth pitcher to make a start for the Twins in 2012. And it is just June.

I think that the results show that it might not be a good idea: the Rockies lost 12 of their last 13 games... Plus not all MLB pitchers can pitch effectively on one less day of rest.

Trying to remember Duensing's longest outing this season.... I think Swarzak has pitched more innings. Starting Duensing will leave only one LHP in the pen (and this has been the closer.) Not too good. I'd rather have seen DeVries up I guess, but since that cannot happen, I'd rather see Swarzak start. Been very disappointed in Manship in general...

I am using IE 9.0.8xxx on Vista

and would that get you about 30 more wins or so to make the Twins competitive? Methinks not.

Hey, I am glad they are starting him. And he needs to start. Even if it is 3 plus 3 like tonight. Same principle as the 2012 draftees... IE ate that, so I am redoing it: Rhodes killed the Aussie league last winter -here summer there but gee he gotta make contact.

And now that I am thinking about it, might be because of the ads Like an option of ads appearing on each reply or something. Really. Check it out on exploder. 'Tis trippy

Nah. no ads I mean "text boxes" in the good old (Gee been 20 years now) definition of a text box in html. Like height and width bars appearing within each reply. Suspect that it has to do with some "element" def in the exploder that is not yet up to snuff...

And that would get you?

Pretty sure that they are all released sometime between the end of last season and the beginning of Spring Training

I don't know whether there was an upgrade here but IE (latest version) has a hard time displaying threads (textboxes appear in every comment). That was not there with IE a couple days ago. (I swear). Firefox is fine. Not a big deal, but letting y'all know.

And then he re-signed Matt Capps to an above market contract and signed Marquis to that contract too. It is ok to dream. But the reality is that the interim GM is well past his prime as well...

a. Rory Rhodes, the big Aussie 1B with a lot of power was demoted from Beloit and is starting there today. b. Hudson Boyd (who is Joba Chamberlain's spit image - see photo) is starting today. Lots thought he would be a reliever, but good to see him start. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7098/7022468801_1536d78b58_o.jpg