This post was originally posted in its entirety at The Tenth Inning Stretch. Because of the image limitations I can only post some of it. To see the whole post with a dozen Action Photos of Twins' players from today's game against the Phillies, please go here

------

This afternoon was the Twins' game with the Phillies at Fort Myers. The Minor League games also started early today, so the side fields were pretty quiet. As usually before Twins' games at Fort Myers, a select group of players were taking batting practice at Field #5, while the non-playing Pitchers were at the OF to catch the balls. The players there were the backup infielder types and back up catchers: Doumit, Towles, Hollimon, Dozier, Burroughs (who was fine to take BP with a soft splint on his left wrist.) Interesting point number one: Drew Butera was absent from that group. Interesting point number two: Batting practice was under the eyes of these two gentlemen who actually had an animated discussion about some of the participants, but it would be rude to listen to a private conversation now, wouldn't it?

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6040/6879271354_1fd26c839f_o.jpg

Back to the game. Liriano was starting (which was a treat) but there were a couple of interesting position choices: Ben Revere was the starting Right Fielder and Luke Hughes was the starting first baseman. Hughes later moved to Left Field, when Willingham was lifted for Hollimon who stayed at the game playing 1B. Revere later move to Center Field, when Brian Dinkelman came in.

You can read the box score and pretty much tell what happened in the game. Very encouraged by Liriano who was hitting 91-94 mph with his Fastball and was locating it properly. Also he induced a lot of ground outs, most with his slider and some with his FB, which is encouraging to see. As far as his mechanics go, he did stay tall (this delivery is on a slider) the whole outing

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6879271410_c0b26e47da_o.jpg

Mauer and Morneau made solid contact. Especially encouraging was to see a couple of hard and far hit balls by Morneau, including a Home Run. Here is his home run swing:

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6236/6879271444_9a71d997fb_o.jpg

The people with "access" might have more information and they might have talked about it by now, but it appears that Willingham got something going on with his left forearm:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7191/6879271566_f6806eb544_b.jpg

Alexi Casilla laid a perfect bunt and he is one of the best bunters in the majors, but his bunting form is somewhat unorthodox:

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6047/7025372697_d464df4276_b.jpg

Speaking about Frankie staying tall, this was later in the game after he got into trouble. Truly, most of the Frankie's trouble was defensive issues. Valencia could have been easily given an error on that ball that passed through 3rd base and Span should have caught that soft pop in shallow center at the 3rd inning. So Frankie did not stay tall at least in that one pitch (and that was a Fastball) :

The remaining post, including photos (12 total) of Twins' players from today's game against the Phillies because of image limitations here continues at The Tenth Inning Stretch.

Thanks for the good work.