Today the Twins met with the Tampa Bay Rays at Hammond Stadium. This was the first time that Scott Baker would pitch after his recent bout with elbow right elbow tendonitis, so it was supposed to be an interesting day.

Before I got there, I checked out the practice fields where the Twins' middle infielder bench-type players (Luke Hughes, Mike Hollimon, Pedro Florimon, Brian Dozier) were taking BP. Andy was tossing and he looks like he still got it:

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Further into the Minor League Complex, Tom Kelly, Jake Mauer and Paul Molitor were conducting infield drills. Levi Michael, Adam Bryant, Andy Leer, Eddie Rosario and Jairo Perez were among the participants. Will they all be Beloit-bound? Who knows, but it is a good possibility...

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Brunansky was throwing BP for the Rochester team and the New Britain and Fort Myers teams were not around, which makes me think that they were traveling today. Bruno can be an interesting trivia questions answer: name a former Twins' player who rights left-handed but bats and throws right-handed. Not many of them:

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About time for the big game.

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And if anyone asks you: "How many Miracle Workers does it take to water down the infield," you now know the answer:

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Baker was the big story of the game. How he is going to come back from the rest and the limited activity because of the tendonitis. The short answer is that it did not look too good. His fast ball was between 85-87 with an occasional 88 and one 89. Was pretty encouraging to see those numbers rise before the 2 HRs and seven earned runs. Here is a shot of Baker pitching earlier this afternoon:

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He just looks like he is in pain. Which is very unfortunate for the Twins. Meanwhile, the Twins are have a plan B in place and this is Liam Hendriks who pitched 4 innings today and is lined up to take Baker's spot in the rotation for the Home opener if necessary:

Because of the image limitation here (and I have about 15 in the post) please continue reading the post at The Tenth Inning Stretch

Geez, Thrylos... that Baker picture is unreal! Wow! Looks quite pained!!

Great Pictures and Great Reports! I had a blast at Spring Training this year. What kind of camera are you using? On a unrelated note, I wouldn't put too much reliance in the pained expression. Do a google image search and you will see it in a few random pictures; I'm more concerned with his velocity.

Thanks guys. Seth, I took 4-5 additional pictures of Baker at that point of the delivery (right after he released the ball) and he does have the same expression in all. I interpreted it as pain, but I have not seen pictures of him right after he releases the ball before.

LimestoneBaggy. I am using a Nikon dSLR with a 300mm lens for most of these pictures