I must admit, I pulled for Sidney Ponson. We’re supposed to be unbiased in this job, and I don’t think it affected my coverage. Loyal readers here know I’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the Triple-A pitchers in line to take Ponson’s job. And I wrote about the strong possibility of Ponson’s release as early as his second start of spring training.

But deep inside, I wanted him to succeed. When I covered Ponson in Baltimore, from 2002 to 2004, Ponson was a fun-loving party animal. We all knew some of his talent was being wasted, but he never made excuses, and he always took the ball every fifth day.

I wasn’t there when things went bad with Ponson and the Baltimore media, in 2005. I wasn’t there for his drunk-driving arrests. He arrived at spring training this year with the Twins as a 30-year-old who had finally turned a corner in life. He was brutally honest with me in an interview early in spring training.

I’ll miss him because he’s such a colorful character. As reporters, we’re trained never to talk to a pitcher on the day he’s supposed to start. Ponson ignored the rule and talked to us! We tried avoiding him, but he’d bait us into conversations filled with nonsense and laughter. He almost always had a big smile on his face when he was at his locker.

After being designated for assignment today, at least Ponson could walk away feeling like he gave everything he had this time. Those off-field problems were behind him. He kept himself in better shape than I’d ever seen him, seriously about 25 pounds less than when I last saw him in 2004. If anything, he was too eager. If he was scheduled to pitch at 7 p.m., he’d show up at 2. Johan often strolls in around 4 on those days. Most pitchers do that as a way to curtail their nervous energy.

“He was a good teammate here,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He handled himself very well. We had a ball with him. His past was his past. … I think he’s on the right path to cleaning everything up, and I think he did a good job here.”

In the comments section, you’ve made it well known how much it bothered you that Sir Sid was blocking the path of Garza and Slowey. But the Twins made a $1 million gamble that Ponson could return to his 2003 form. It was worth a try, and it bought the Twins time. Garza has had an up-and-down season for Rochester. Let’s say those shaky starts had come for the Twins. Then people here would have soured on him — a la Scott Baker in 2006.

Oh yeah, Baker. He’s been pretty good down there for Rochester this year, and it’ll probably be him or Glen Perkins taking Ponson’s place in the rotation on Saturday, with Slowey and Garza honing their skills, gaining experience, knocking on the door. Long season friends. Counting tonight, there are still 126 games left.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 13th, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.