FORT MYERS — Francisco Liriano lasted into the fourth inning today in his third start of spring training, and once again, there were good parts and bad parts of his performance.

Here’s his pitching line: 3.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K. (He faced three batters in the fourth inning).

He threw 59 pitches, 33 for strikes.

The Marlins aren’t exactly the Yankees, and Liriano tossed a 1-2-3 first inning on nine pitches. He gave up a leadoff single to Jorge Cantu in the second inning but retired the next three batters. So after two innings, Liriano had allowed just one base runner.

But he walked two batters in the third, as the Marlins took a 1-0 lead, and the first three batters of the fourth inning (Cody Ross, Jason Wood and Paul Hoover) got base hits before Manager Ron Gardenhire replaced Liriano with Brian Bass.

Once again, Liriano seemed to have trouble commanding his fastball. I saw a couple decent sliders, but some that looked like they were just spinning. It’s clear Liriano has a long road ahead of him as he looks to regain his 2006 form, 15 months removed from Tommy John surgery.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 1:12 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.