ST – Tampa Bay @ Minnesota

here you go guys!

NOTE: Francisco Liriano made his first appearance on the mound this morning in a “B Game”. This, from MLB.com’s beat reporter Kelly Thesier:

Liriano was a little erratic in his first spring start. He pitched two innings and threw close to 40 pitches. He gave up a run while allowing three hits, walking two and hitting a batter. He also recorded one strikeout.

A tweet from the Strib added that they were told he was throwing about 91-92 mph on his fastball and may have touched 93. Still, not exactly an impressive ST debut. Then again, it IS still just exactly that… a Spring Training debut. – JC

So the REAL game today had better results than the B game as far as pitching goes.  Both Slowey and Nathan would be what I would call highlights since they both had excellent outtings their second time out.  The fact that Nathan had GREAT movement on his pitches, a K and good velocity for what he expects AND seemed to have recovered well from his previous outting just makes me all shivery inside. Having Slowey also have a good outting says good things for our starting rotation.

Several good hits and some heads up base play from the sounds of things from the young guys made the game interesting and Kubes was hitting the cover off the ball again.  Other entertainment available today – especially for Gordo & Dazzle – was that apparently, the Rays put on a squeeze play during the B squad game… and Liriano did his job, fielded the ball and got the out at home – so good stuff all around.  Better?  Gardy decided to return the favor and pulled the same thing in the second game… yeah, it worked for us.  Good stuff.