LegoVision for 2007? PLLLLEEEAAAASSSSEEEE! :D

We have no idea what's been going on.

We've been sitting here waiting for YOU to come back and tell US.

gDiapers are better than Seventh Generation which are better than everything else.

Have you ever watched a TV show where at the beginning of an episode, the voiceover guy comes on and says something like, "Dr. Steven Goldenson will now be played by Tim Piffenny," and even though Mr. Piffenny looks nothing like the previous actor, the character hasn't really changed, so by logical extension it's the same show, except now a character has totally different hair or slightly different skin color, or maybe is a little taller, or maybe works mostly on the mound, or maybe has a drinking problem instead of a deep, personal relationship with Jesus... all for no good reason?

Yeah. It's like that. The role of Juan Castro will now be played by Ramon Ortiz. The role of Tony Batista will now be played by Sidney Ponson.

Pampers are the Cadillac of Diapers. But the Target brand are my preferred second choice (although the newborn size seems too thin, the #2-3 sizes are much better), and come significantly cheaper.

I second the Goddess,

Generally though panicing about hitting, panicing about pitching, panicing about fielding and repeating, 'It's only spring training' over and over again

So basically like every other spring training ever

Truly, it's been an incredibly boring spring so far. What passes for "big news" is that Lew Ford had knee surgery and is out for four to six weeks, Ken Harvey is going under that same knife tomorrow, Rule 5 pick and prospective backup SS Alejandro Machado has been too banged up to play, and the Twins seem to actually be giving Slowey, Perkins, and Durbin serious looks for the fifth starter spot.

I am down here in Fort Myers and I have to admit that Ramon Ortiz is actually looking alot better than I had expected him to. Works quickly, throwing strikes...if Andy can keep him focused he may not be half bad. Otherwise Johan actually had some control problems up until yesterday against the Cards though as I said to the guy sitting next to me, "if how Johan started Sring Training was the BIGGEST worry..." Boof should have no worries at making the rotation. The writers are saying Santana, Ortiz and Silva are "locks" but I'd be more encouraged at Santa, Bonser and maybe Perkins, Garza, Slowey...but with Silva, alas, it appears we may be forced to a few early season months of ineptness much like the left side of the infield. Nathan has been 'lights out' every time he comes in the game but I don't know if we're going to find another left hander for the bullpen out of this group; none have impressed. And in the last 2 games FINALLY the bats seem to be awakening! :)

I second frightwig. Target diapers are a very good, economical alternative to the cadillac brands.

As far at the Twins: From what I can gather there are essentially two roster spots remaining:

(1) The 5th starting pitcher. Candidates are Ponson, Garza, Perkins, Baker and Slowey.

(2) The last bench spot or 12th pitcher. Candidates are LRod, LeCroy, Machado (sp?), Casilla for the bench spot and Durbin or maybe one of the 5th starter candidates for the 12th pitcher spot.

That is off the top of my head. Am I missing anyone/anything?

I think you pretty much hit the high points, NIH.

I'm thinking we may have seen the last of Lewwww in a Twins uniform, unless Tyner digs a hole for himself in April. Matty is most likely going to be learning the art of managing from the Cliburns in Rochester. Casilla is making a case for being the utility middle infielder but what he really needs is to play every day, so he's likely going to start in Rochester, too.

The rotation battle is really getting interesting. The worst case scenario coming in was that all of the candidates for spots 2-5 in the rotation would suck. Instead, there may actually be more worthy candidates than there are open spots behind El Presidente. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the Twins will go north with the 5 guys who've pitched the best. I'm still afraid that the best overall rotation in the Twins organization to start the season is going to be the Red Wings' and not the Twins'.

I'm in Florida for a week so I'm hoping to pick up a ticket for the Yankee game in Tampa tonight, I'm heading to Ft Myers for the O's game tomorrow (have an extra ticket, by the way, if anyone is down here and would like it... click my nick to email me), and I may try to catch the game on Sunday as well.

It's great to have baseball back!

It's Bizarro Spring! Nobody knows what our starting rotation will look like, and we have zero turnover in out starting lineup.

I have to agree with Nealcp. So far, Andy seems to have Ortiz on the right track. Ponson, however, still has work to do. I would predict a starting rotation of Santana, Silva, Bonser, Otriz, and Garza at this point.

Oh, and Crawdaddy LeCroy is back with his canned possum meat and his beer belly. This time, however, he's wearing Michael Jordon's #23. So... you know... "Air LeCroy".

KARE 11 News did another Twins Extra this week, but they were slow in posting it to their website. This week, Justin Morneau Goes Shopping.
Click my name for the video, eh.

Our boys couldn't seem to win a game until someone tricked them by saying "second half" and now they are just fine.

Ramon Ortiz is hanging out with Silva and Santana. In fact, he goes running with Silva. Cute!

I think LeCroy has a deal with Lewwwwww, whereby if Lewwwww gets put on the DL, Matt has a better shot at landing at the Dome, where he can better entertain the folks with his TC Bear impressions. (Roles to include DH, backup to the backup catcher, hitting home runs, and riding around on the ATV after games waving a Twins flag.)

BOOF will land in the rotation, because no one wants to see him replay his "Boof SMASH" from the last time he was sent to AAA. Garza will land in the rotation because someone has to take over Radke's title of Best Hair. Gardy's logical like that.

Aside from that, it's just regular ol' spring training!

Man tells cops unicorn caused crash

Wed Mar 14, 7:14 AM ET

BILLINGS, Mont. - A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post — it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.

Was Nick Punto seen anywhere near the accident?

Lyle Kohse hit our center fielder in the head.

Best news interview so far was Hunter after Lyle beaned him.

Reporter - "Do you think he tried to hit you in the head?"

Hunter - "Nah..."

Reporter - "How do you know?"

Hunter - "Because he hit me in the head!"

Dear Bat-Girl,

That's one absolutely adorable baby. Amazing, isn't it, how someone so tiny can take up so much of your time? It's so worth it, though.

Here are some updates as I understand them:

I think the pitching situation is shaping up better than even the shiniest, happiest, most optimistic among us could've hoped.

The bats are out of hibernation. Yay!

Castillo has a few creaks and groans, but I don't think that's anything new. Seems like he played through them pretty well last year.

And as far as I can tell, we should be able to take the moral high ground in fielding this year, which is a good thing. Fantastic fielding sure comes in handy on days when the ass-bats are out in force. (Not that I expect that to happen this year!)

19 days until the first pitch of the season!

Tricia

Don't forget that Garza was having bad headaches but he isn't anymore. That got a lot of coverage. Also, for some reason Panzon isn't worried about the horrible starts that he has had so far. I think he probably should be.

'Air LeCroy...'

(falls out of chair, taking huge gulping breaths of air between helpless peals of laughter, beacuse helpless laughter is really the only reaction for LeCroy at this point)

I also agree with that rotation, Flip. That's my favorite combo.

A pox on Lyle.

Glad to see young master Dash is flourishing, BG.

Not Twins-related, but the other day Barry Bonds lost two balls in the sun in left field (one of which was hit by our own Jaque Jones), and ended up falling down and looking very silly. Just a free sample from God's comedy store, always delicious.

Most things I was gonna say have been said--but it looks like JD Durbin may get the last bullpen spot--hopefully not at Shaggy's expense. Dont think Matty will make team--5 bench spots go to Tyner, Naked BP, LRod and Cerillo and a backup shortstop to be named later.

DAM

Great jobs on the update, folks. I have to keep myself from laughing out loud at work.

BTW, my favorite moment of the MVP Shopping Experience is when Doc asked the little lady what size socks her dad wore. She gave him the "I don't know. I'm a girl." shrug/eye roll. His response: "Nice."

Flip's prediction seems about right. At least through April, I can't see how we won't be watching Santana, Silva, Bonser, Ortiz, and Garza.

Oh, and the reason I came back here to comment is that someone at work just pointed me to the NY Sun. That august institution just named Mientkiewicz one of the worst players in baseball.

http://www.nysun.com/article/50438

Thanks for the link, Twayn.

I wonder what kind of purse the Doctor was looking for.

Thanks for the link, Twayn.

I wonder what kind of purse the Doctor was looking for. 'Cause I'd be happy to help him shop for handbags any old time.

Matt, that's priceless!
One of the twins beat writers over @ twinsbaseball.com in response to a question in the weekly "mail bag" after much humming and hawing said:

"But as for my guess at the five coming out of spring, right now I would have to say it will be Santana, Ortiz, Silva, Bonser and Garza, although Perkins is pushing for that fifth spot and could make a run with some more outings like the one he had Sunday against the Blue Jays".

Have to say I agree, and think it's cool that the twins seem to actually be paying as muck attention to Perkins as to Ponson.
http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070312&content_id=1839543&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=min

The Justin and Johan commercial is out and pretty much makes my life complete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17qoGXYlTGY

Thanks, Stacy, I've been waiting to see that commercial. I noticed there are some behind the scenes interviews with Johan and the MVP from the commercial shoot on You Tube as well. I especially like 33 talking about his runny nose.

The "Behind the Scenes" video is even better than the commercial!

Thanks for the kind words, Carmen.

Hahaha, I like how you hear Johan telling Justin that he'll have to move to the back of the line in that New Era commerical. Nice. That's a good teammate right there.

Wow - who woulda thunk it? A national commercial featuring El Presidente and starring our very own Justin Morneau? With him puffing up his chest and saying, "I'm the MVP, I get to go in first"??!? Incredible.

By the way, BG, you might want to check out Luvs diapers. They're much less expensive than your brand of choice, and Consumer Reports (and our boy's bum) rate them right at the top of the heap.

Oh, and speaking of disposable things, when can we dump (get it? DUMP??!?) Ponson? Isn't this experiment already proving to be a catastrophe? I just want this nightmare to end now; no need to repeat the T-Phat debacle.

Let's see ....

The golf weather has been great for the boys ....

Gardy & Anderson are saying nice things about the pitchers whether they pitch good or bad ....

There's no rhyme or reason to whether a preseason game is or is not blacked out on DirecTV ....

There are still a lot of non-pitcher high numbers getting into games ....

The stadium seems to be stuck again ....

The Gopher men's hockey team is in the WCHA Final Five again (and were first in the WCHA during the regular season again) ....

Brad Radke still hasn't shown up for camp .... we were all hoping (a) this "retirement" thing was a gag; and (b) contrary to rumor, his arm hasn't fallen off ....

Pete Rose has admitted (again) betting on baseball ....

Once again, Torii Hunter isn't going to be here "next year" - of course, they said that last year ....

I saw Carlos lob a Tommy Lasorda batting practice pitch to Jason Giambi, who was too insulted to even hit it out of the park... other than that Jason struck out with bases loaded... and the media are all screaming for the beginning of the "Garza Casilla Era" to begin. And they might be right.

So I switched over the NASA Channel (77 on your Minneapolis Comcast dial) and the world was back to being right again...

Another typical spring training. Dr. Morneau complaining about the lack of Jimmy Johns in Ft. Myers, old people passing out from the heat and humidity.

Bat-girl: Very unimpressive. My daughter was born June 7 of last year (yes, the same day the Twins were 25-33 and Morneau was batting his weight). Not only did she single handedly turn the season around, even from out here in San Diego, but I also recall damn near every game from that point on... the last one was against Chicago, right? :-)

Glad to have you back. Now start watching again, that's what a satellite dish is for.

no kiddin BG, Pampers are the Lexus of diapers, and when they get to toddlin' you have to go with the deluxe package and sunroof and go with the Pampers Cruisers, they are a must! (Until you run out of Benjamins and just settle for the regular Pampers and risk an explosion once in a while!)

Oh yeah, and the twins won yesterday 16-2!!!!

Speaking of Young Dash - has he chosen his Boyfriend yet? 'cause in the BOD contest this year, I wanna be lined up with the kid - he's got karma.