After watching most of Sunday’s game and pondering the activity so far in Fort Myers, here are some of my questions:

*Is Gardy gonna stick to the 12-pitcher pronouncement? I can see where he’s tempted, owing to the fact that the Twins have only 1 day off in the first 3 weeks of the season. But unless he’s considering Cuddyer/Young/Monroe as a back-up for the center-field winner (or planning to jettison Monroe with Jason Pridie as the backup to Gogomez), something’s gonna hafta give. 12 pitchers, 2 catcher and 6 infielders leave room for 5 outfielders/DH, right? That sounds like Cuddyer/Young/Kubel/Monroe and ???. I can’t believe the Twins would go with 5 infielders, given the limitations of everyone except Morneau. Mitt Harris isn’t a great glove guy, Lamb hasn’t proven himself as an everyday guy at third, Everett and Punto are offensively challenged. The Twins need more infield flexibility. With a 5-outfielder roster, I’ve gotta believe that the backup configuration would be Kubel/Cuddy 0r Monroe/Young and I’m gonna need to be made more comfortable with that.

*The rotation: Baker, Oof, Livan, Liriano and… ??? Right now, I’m thinking the Twins are giving Glen Perkins every chance to win that spot based on how they’ve been using him in Florida. It’s an interesting race. Kevin Slowey’s start today will be interesting to follow. (Update: Slowey gave up 6 hits — all singles — in 3 innings to Florida, and got out of bases-loaded situations in the 2d and 3d. In the second, he got two fly balls; in the third, Casilla caught a line drive to start a double play. Randy Ruiz had a 3-RBI double, but also managed not to cover first base on a bunt.)

*Does anyone else want to hear Cuddyer talk more about leadership? He jabbed Torii when he was asked by Dick’n'Bert during Sunday’s telecast about filling a leadership gap. No such thing exists, Cuddyer replied. He made it sound like reports of Torii’s leadership may have been a bit overstated and I wanna hear the follow-up queries. Cuddyer was on the verge of Crawfording ol’ No. 48.

*Who insisted that Gardy use the phrase “bathroom caulk” in the “Ron’n'Carol shop local” hardware store commercial? The dialog elicits a sophomoric response from some people I otherwise consider mature. (Biting own tongue here.) Good to know, though, that Gardy doesn’t go big box.

*What is Texas thinking?

other people are here too.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 10:36 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.