John Bonnes

Tuesday afternoon's game between the Twins and Rays ended with the Twins clutching to a 3-2 lead. Danny Valencia had the decisive hit, a single (with an error) that drove in the second and third run with two outs in the third innings. The Twins loaded the bases for Valencia with a mixture of small ball: a single, a sac bunt, two stolen bases and two walks. On the hill, Scott Baker went two innings, Matt Capps struggled a little but got out of his inning without giving up a run and Glen Perkinds struck out two in his frame. Both Rays runs came in the eighth inning off of reliever Jeff Gray. For more detail, including lots of hitter by hitter description and reaction, check out this afternoon's game thread. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Aaron Gleeman and the Twins Geek discuss Zumaya's injury, rank JR Towles chances of unseating Drew Butera, watch the Twins first televised spring training game, take questions at the Wild Boar and finally unveil John's original "Beauty & The Beast" theme song. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews). [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

The beginning of the Grapefruit Season means more baseball talk, and we saw it on the forum board yesterday: The live thread of the game was a little weird because most people heard the game two hours later. That led to some talk about the limitations of MLB.TV. Also, Seth recapped the game the game which led to more discussion. Gardenhire surprised some of us by playing Trevor Plouffe in left field along with all the other starters. Does that mean Revere could be on the bench? And if that's the case, should Willingham play left field after all? Finally, just the concept of watching baseball live had members reminiscing about their favorite ballparks. This was by far our most popular thread of the day. Ah, spring. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

In their first official Grapefruit League game, the Twins defeated the Rays 7-3 this afternoon in Fort Myers. Manager Ron Gardenhire trotted out a lineup heavy on expected starting position players, but it was the backups who had the biggest impact, tallying three runs in the 6th inning to give the Twins a lead they would not relenquish. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Carl Pavano started the game, giving up a 2-run home run in the first inning to Matt Joyce. He and Brian Duensing both pitched two innings in a game that featured five other Twins pitchers with major league experience: Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Alex Burnett, Matt Maloney and Anthony Swarzak. Swarzak gave up the other run the Rays scored and the southpaw Maloney struck out the side in the eighth, albeit facing all left-handed hitters. With plenty of attention being paid to the healthy of Joe Mauer, Denard Span and Justin Morneau, Twins trainers should be happy to hear that they all had a good start to their spring training season. Span had two hits, Mauer drove in the Twins first run and Morneau the second with a two-out opposite-field hit against the Rays shift. That tied the game at 2-2 going into the sixth inning. Then the bench started doing some realy damage. Shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka had two hits, including a warning-track triple. Chris Parmelee also had two hits in his two at-bats, though he later ran into an out by failing to recognize that the runner in front of him had stopped at third base. Catcher Chris Herrmann, outfielder Joe Benson and second baseman Mike Hollimon also contributed RBI.

Waddya say we watch us some baseball? Our first chance to see the Twins on TV is this Monday night, so why not celebrate with some Twins fans? Aaron Gleeman and I will be at The Wild Boar on Monday night (3/5 at 6:05) for our weekly podcast and kicking back to watch the Twins. Hopefully, you can join us, bring your questions and help us revel in end of the offseason. We'll see you there! For more on the event, or just to hear our candid takes on the Twins, check out our latest podcast. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Aaron and John talk about pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training, Justin Morneau's discouraging quotes about his health status, Sean Burroughs' odds of making the roster, Aaron's ongoing car saga, John's marriage, and a bunch of mailbag questions. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

The TwinsCentric GM Offseason Handbook listed 23 right-handed relievers, sorted in descending order by what we thought they would receive on the open market. The 23rd was Joel Zumaya. He was listed last because of the obvious injury risk he represented. But Zumaya wasn't the 23rd one signed. Twins General Manager Terry Ryan was aggressive, like he had been all offseason, and Zumaya signed relatively early given his status. That signing was almost universally praised because Zumaya has such terrific upside and because the contract was cheap and not guaranteed. It was lauded as the perfect low-risk signing for a team with a limited offseason budget like the Twins. But it was not low risk, and the one person who knew that was Terry Ryan. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Ryan knew something that the evaluators and fans did not - Zumaya would be the last reliever the Twins would sign this offseason. He was essentially replacing the departed Joe Nathan. If it didn't work, the backup plan was.... I'm sure I'll hear this week how there are still plenty of backup plans. In terms of quantity, there are. But not in terms of quality. Every one of them is either a member of last year's shaky corps or a waiver or minor-league pickup. We could bring the TwinsCentric crew into spring training camp if we want to add some quantity. But that isn't going to bolster that backup plan. So now the true risk of that move is a lot clearer. When Zumaya's season ended yesterday, the first 21 of the right-handed relievers on TwinsCentric's list already belonged to other major league teams. (By the way, at least a half dozen signed similar low-risk deals as Zumaya's.) Number 22 is Michael Wuertz, a formerly dominant reliever whose velocity has fallen and whose ERA soared to 6.68 last year. He represents a significant risk himself. It's forgivable for evaluators to praise the Zumaya signing - they didn't know what Ryan did. But Ryan knew. And he had to know that a reliever who hadn't finished a season healthy since 2006 was a big risk. So now he will have an extra million dollars left to spend and no relievers to spend it on. It was a foolish gamble from the beginning which has unsurprisingly failed.

If you didn't read these blog posts yesterday, you might want to check them out... TwinsArmChairGM talks about a couple of candidates for that second pick in the amateur draft that the Twins have. Kirsten Brown breaks down the option of carrying two or three catchers on the 25-man roster. There was also some discussion about how realistic carrying only two catchers was. This weekend is the Oscars, so Cody Christie turns Twins headlines into Oscar movie plots. And VeryWellThen recaps Major League Baseball's shocking announcement that they'll replace the All-Star Game with The Hunger Games. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]