Night Baseball

I got to hear the last 6 innings of the game on TRN after work.

Kevin Slowey threw 5 shutout innings, allowing just 3 hits and striking out 5. In his last 9 spring innings, he's gotten 30 outs, giving up 1 run on 4 legitimate base hits, with 1 walk and 10 strikeouts, lowering his spring ERA to 4.02 over 15.2 innings. With Scott Baker likely missing his first turn in April, I'd say Slowey has pretty well made the team.

Carlos Gomez was in the middle of the Twins' offense tonight. Though he looked bad striking out on 3 pitches with a man on in the 5th, his double in the 3rd set up the Twins first run by moving Adam Everett to 3rd base, where he scored on a sac fly. In the 7th, he beat out an infield chopper that would have been the 3rd out with a slower runner. He promptly stole second, and scored on a bloop single by Butera. His mistakes are going to cost the team some games this year, but his speed may win as many or more.

Great job by the bullpen, throwing four scoreless innings. Special props to (the soon-to-be-extended?) Joe Nathan, who stretched it out to 2 IP, giving up just one hit and striking out three.

Brendan Harris had some good ABs tonight and played solid second base. Hopefully he's coming around.

Craig Monroe had a good 0-3 tonight, working deep counts, and driving the ball well twice.

I've added Slowey to my fantasy team - that's how confident I am in his potential for this year.