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Aaron and John recover at Fair State Coop and discuss Jorge Polanco's midyear move to shortstop, PECOTA's optimistic view on the Twins defense, the keyword that can get you a pair of 20-game Twins season tickets at kernelnation.com, recovery timelines for Phil Hughes and Glen Perkins, Twins Daily's fifth anniversary, Byung-Ho Park's (mis)perceived weaknesses, how a co-op works, Aaron's new podcast, listener mailbag questions and why they both need to recover from Friday night. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Click here to view the article

Between several courses as the Iron Door Pub, Aaron and John debate just how far out of favor Byung-Ho Park has fallen, welcome Matt Belisle and discuss where he fits into the Twins 2017 bullpen, debate the contract status and pronunciation of Ehire Adrianza, cover Aaron's new condo news and whether it means he'll need a new Casper mattress, review the departure and return of Craig Breslow and recall Aaron's first concert experience. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this linkhttp://traffic.libsy...3?dest-id=74590 Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about Max Kepler and the Twins' lineup doing big damage, Kennys Vargas making the most of his (last?) chance, Trevor Plouffe's broken rib and the Twins' medical staff, Eduardo Nunez making the All-Star team, Daniel Palka moves up to Triple-A, the power of Twitter, midseason prospect rankings, and Terry Ryan saying (again) the Twins are open for business. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins getting right in Cleveland, the surprising AL Central pecking order, the legend of Juan Centeno, Tyler Duffey and Ervin Santana carrying the rotation again, Joe Mauer leading off, Byron Buxton on fire at Triple-A, Byung Ho Park looking better and better, and finding the unexpected on the Minnesota Corn Growers' website.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

There's been a lot of negativity surrounding the 2016 Minnesota Twins. Poor play on the field and mounting losses make it tough for the fanbase to get too excited about a team that seems to be heading for 90 losses for the fifth time in the last six seasons. However, mixed in with all that negativity have been a few bright spots. Joe Mauer seems to be back to hitting like Joe Mauer. Jose Berrios has come up and held his own through his first few starts. But the biggest surprise of the season might be the hot start by Minnesota's biggest offseason acquisition, Byung-Ho Park.Park entered play this weekend in the midst of a six-game hitting streak. That streak came to an end on Saturday after he was plunked on the knee with a Chris Sale slider. He was forced to be removed from the game but it was an impressive week of hitting from the rookie slugger. In his first 10 MLB games, Park spent some time adjusting to pitching at the big league level. He hit .167/.268/.389 with four extra-base hits and a 15 to 4 strikeout to walk ratio. Over the next 14 games, Park found his groove and hit .348/.404/.761 with eight extra-base hits (five home runs). He also reduced his strikeout to walk ratio from 12 to 4. The most impressive thing might be the fact that Park is seeing many of these pitchers for the first time. He is already making adjustments to the best pitchers in the game and the results have been impressive to say the least. Some questioned whether Park's power would translate from Korea to the United States. MLB Statcast ranks Park in the top three in the American League for home run distance as his longest home run went 451.2 feet. In fact, Park has two of the top 40 longest home runs hit in all of baseball this season. Park's heat map up to this point in the season shows why he has been effective. He takes advantage of pitches in the zone. His swing trajectory also helps him to go after pitches that are low and away while still making solid contact. By examining his spray chart, it's easy to see that he is already comfortable using all parts of the field and his home runs have gone to all parts of the park. Even with his slow start, Parks batting line is up to .256/.337/.570 and he leads the Twins with seven home runs (through play on Sunday). He does have 29 strikeouts across 98 plate appearances but those numbers were on the decline with his recent hot streak. The strikeouts were expected with his transition to the big leagues but the other numbers have to be more than the Twins could have hoped for. Park leads all AL rookies in home runs, slugging percentage, and OPS while ranking near the top in many other categories. Prospects like Byron Buxton, Jose Berrios, and Max Kepler get a lot of the hype but Park could end up being the recipient of the American League Rookie of the Year award. If Park keeps up this pace for the rest of the season, the Twins will have gotten quite the steal from Korea. Even if he can't keep the pace going, he has still shown Twins Territory "The Power of Park." Click here to view the article

On perhaps the most beautiful day Minnesotans have seen in 2016, fans of the local ball club were treated to sunshine, cold beer and a dream-like state in which, we we had gone almost 48 whole hours without a loss. But still there was unrest, muttering and snarls at the young hitters. "NOT A HOME RUN, MAUER!" when the resurgent catcher ripped a screamer up the middle, straight into a second baseman's glove. "SWING THE BAT, BIG BOY!" when Miguel Sano spat on border line pitch after border line pitch. "ARCIA, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN...I JUST...UGH...." they bemoaned and the erstwhile fan favorite. http://m.mlb.com/assets/images/8/8/2/172743882/cuts/park1280_yeax036g_rri9vzni.jpg Somewhere, I like to think that the newest target of fan abuse, Korean slugger Byung-Ho Park, was blissfully unaware of the groans and ignorant remarks about him. ("He don't speak any English," and "Bung-hole" were two particular gems.) I like to think, even though I speak no Korean and have know way of knowing for sure, that there are things he feels that he cannot say, thoughts and ideas lost in translation. Mercifully, one large thing not lost in translation is this power. After celebrating with teammates, in the approved, high-fiving, helmet-slapping way, Park was left alone with his thoughts. His pride. The honor of being able to play at the highest level. His new friends and the cheers of the people so far from home. All too suddenly, the reporters were there to squeeze into strange and foreign words all the personal feelings of the moment. How did he feel about this bomb?...like a gentle zephyr had caught hold of his heart, like he was buoyant, airborne, "the wind is back," he smiled... ...and his interpreter explained "the wind was blowing out." How did it feel to win again? Of course it felt good, but better than good: "affirming, invigorating, as though the storm clouds of our souls have been broken apart, and the rain drop tears of fans have stopped, and now we make the beautiful music of bat, and ball, and glove and tong-il a unification and coherence of all the team..." Korea's Reunification Arch ...and his interpreter explained "it feels good, yesterday we broke the losing streak, today it's a two game winning streak. It feels good to hear music again." The reporters smiled, Park smiled, the translator smiled. Words may vanish like gossamer in the summer air, but the memories of this home run would last for everyone, and perhaps that's the true poetry.

It wasn’t supposed to start like this; it wasn’t even supposed to be close. Even the most pessimistic Twins fan wouldn’t have seen three straight sweeps to start the season coming. 4-5? Sure. 2-7? Maybe. 0-9 as of Friday morning? Only if Miguel Sano, Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer, Trevor Plouffe, and Ervin Santana all joined a doomsday cult and disappeared into a Central American jungle. And yet, even without a cult-related roster issue, here we are.When a team is 0-9, the list of things that are going well is obviously going to be far shorter than the list of things going wrong, but pointing fingers doesn’t do much good. Any one player’s struggles would be masked if his teammates weren’t also struggling. So the question is, absent sweeping systemic changes -- Mauer leads off! DH for Byron Buxton and let the pitchers hit! -- is there a team-wide change that could help jump start the team? Short answer: No. No silver bullet exists for an entire lineup. Fin Ok, fine, it won’t help everyone, but there is one thing that may help a few of the Twins’ hitters to get going, which may be enough to push an extra run or two across and steal them a win. It’s absolutely worth noting that, while these numbers accurately reflect what has happened so far and match up reasonably well with historical trends, we’re still 2-3 weeks from getting anything even remotely resembling stable data. That said, there’s enough smoke here to believe there may be fire, too. One of the things that Sano drew quite a bit of praise for last season, and Byung-Ho Park showed this spring, was their patience. Both sluggers are willing to wait for the best possible pitch to drive, even if it means watching a few hittable pitches go by, and they’re certainly not the only Twins to adopt that philosophy. If doing so leads to more walks or better pitches to hit later in plate appearances, then so much the better, but as evidenced by the fact that the Twins have the fourth most strikeouts in baseball and have produced the fewest runs, a change in mentality may help break the team’s offensive funk. The most patient hitter in the majors leagues so far in 2016 is the A’s Marcus Semien, who is seeing 4.88 pitches per plate appearance (P/PA). That will likely come down a bit as the top marks from 2013-2015 were 4.59, 4.45, and 4.37 respectively. Seeing four or more pitches per plate appearance is not necessarily rare, but it’s hard to argue that a player who does it lacks discipline. Right now, of the Twins’ regulars, Buxton and Park fall into that category with Sano just missing. (Oswaldo Arcia has actually seen the most P/PA on the team at 6.00, but in just four PAs, so he doesn’t really qualify. Impressive nonetheless, though.) Park is clearly still learning the league, which makes it hard to gauge exactly what is going on with his approach. He’s seeing fewer off-speed and breaking pitches than many expected, but he isn’t performing worse against them than he is against the fastballs he has been thrown. This is good in the sense that he doesn’t have an easily identifiable weakness teams can exploit, but since he isn’t hitting anything -- hard or soft -- it’s hard to say whether he’s hitting off-speed and breaking pitches as well as he’s hitting fastballs or faring just as badly against fastballs as he is against more challenging pitches. Much like Jung-Ho Kang’s struggles in the first half of last year, Park’s early season issues should come as little surprise given his unfamiliarity with the league, and it seems reasonable to expect that he’ll come around as he starts seeing pitchers for the second and third time. However, there is one sign of passivity that is worrisome. http://i.imgur.com/0xDhhlo.png As you can see from this heat map from Brooksbaseball.net, Park is getting hittable pitches but isn’t striking at them, particularly early in counts. With two strikes, pitchers are pounding him low and out of the zone, but with 0 or 1 strike, they seem perfectly willing to challenge him in the middle third of the strike zone. He’s going to have to show that he’s capable of punishing mistakes over the plate if he’s going to command any respect from pitchers. Until he does that, they have little reason not to get strike one over the heart of the plate, then aim low and away until they catch a corner or an edge. Buxton is a fundamentally different hitter than the others, but it’s worth looking into his approach, too, since the Twins dream of a day when he can lead off instead of praying he’ll be able to turn the lineup over. Unlike Sano and Eddie Rosario, who seem to have regressed significantly since last season, Buxton doesn’t look all that different: He still looks overmatched at the plate, though a deeper dive into the numbers would show regression from his brief 2015 stint as well. As is often the case with hitters who don’t have a ton of power, pitchers have been challenging Buxton in the strike zone. He’s seeing a nominally above-average number of pitches in the zone (48.6 percent for Buxton compared to an average of 47.1 percent) and pitchers aren’t shy about using their fastballs against him. Buxton swings at a below-average amount of pitches, but his percentages are skewed: He swings at a well above-average amount of pitches outside the zone (35.7 percent compared to a league average of 29.2 percent) and a well below-average amount of pitches inside it (61.5 percent compared to a league average of 65.9 percent), which leaves him with a contact rate almost 9 percent below league average and almost none of it is classified as hard contact. Of Buxton’s 24 plate appearances so far, he has gotten ahead 1-0 just eight times and fallen behind 0-1 the other 16 times. Going back to last season, Buxton has put the first pitch in play just 12 times in 163 plate appearances; pitchers know that they can get ahead with a first-pitch strike, then nibble until Buxton gets himself out by swinging at a pitch out of the zone. Obviously “swing at fewer pitches out of the strike zone” is great advice for any hitter at any level, albeit not really useful, but getting aggressive against first-pitch strikes may keep Buxton from seeing so many pitches he can’t decide which ones to attack and which ones to let pass. Buxton could have seen first-hand the benefits of some early count aggression as Sano ambushed more than a few pitchers last season, hitting .700/.714/1.650 the 21 times he put the first pitch in play. If he had picked up right where he left off last season and were hitting the cover off the ball, Sano’s modified approach would look like maturity; given the fact that he’s still searching for his first extra-base hit, it looks a bit more like passivity. Sano is swinging at fewer pitches overall (37.4 percent of pitches he sees compared to 40.2 percent last season) and the good news is that most of that growth is coming from a six percentage point drop in swings at pitches out of the strike zone (18.5 percent this year, down from 25.8 percent last year). The downside is that when he IS swinging, he’s making less contact. Drawing a lot of walks is essential for a hitter who strikes out a lot and is expected to produce most of his value via the home run, but Sano isn’t capitalizing when he’s ahead in the count by punishing pitchers forced to put the ball in the strike zone. Whether it’s looking for too perfect a pitch or if he’s getting fooled, Sano is using his eye to put pitchers in a precarious spot, then letting them get back into the count and work the corners when they regain their margin. He needn’t adopt Mauer’s plate approach, but If Sano starts putting 0-0, 1-1, and 0-1 pitches into play the way he did last season, he’s liable to see more driveable pitches on 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 counts. Sano has proven that he has the eye to take a walk when it’s given to him, what he needs to show now is that walking him is by far the safest course of action. For inexperienced hitters, which Park, Buxton, and Sano all are in one sense or another, there are underlying issues like strike zone judgment and comfort with opposing pitchers that can make being aggressive early in counts more difficult or undesirable. However, since their outcomes can’t get much worse and the current process isn’t even producing the building blocks of success, it may be time to simplify the plan at the plate to “See ball, hit ball” since heaven knows all three of them have shown themselves to be supremely capable of doing so. Once the pressure is off and the team has a few wins under its belt, perhaps it will make sense for Park and Sano to go back to making opposing pitchers labor during their plate appearances, but even a tired pitcher isn’t useful if no one is making him pay for his mistakes. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk at the Iron Door Pub about the Twins' brutal 0-6 start, over-managing Miguel Sano, "messing" up tater tots, Joe Mauer quietly having a big week, assessing Byung Ho Park, a special Home Opener GATG podcast, Danny Santana getting hurt, Paul Molitor tinkering constantly, Ricky Nolasco coming up big, buying a mattress from Casper, Glen Perkins struggling again, and Max Kepler filling in. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John say goodbye to the too-long offseason, get back on KFAN, and preview the Twins season by asking 10 key questions, thanks to the Minnesota Corn Growers. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

MLB.com's Cut4 reminds us of a weird little bit of Twins history: "on March 6, 1973, Larry Hisle took the first at-bat as a DH in the history of the game." It was spring training, of course, and in fact Hisle -- who the Twins had acquired the prior November to be their primary center fielder -- wouldn't play a regular game as designated hitter until 1975. As the article notes, the first regular-season DH was the Yankees' Ron Blomberg, who was born to play the "position." Still, though, Hisle was the first guy ever to fill the slot of "designated hitter" in a Major League Baseball game, 43 years ago yesterday, and that's kind of cool. It got me thinking about the Twins and the designated hitter. In my mind -- in which the days when Ron Gardenhire would just plug in Jason Tyner or Mike Redmond are still fairly fresh, along with the more recent (and hopefully temporary) disappointments of Oswaldo Arcia and Kennys Vargas -- it's just always been a position they've struggled to fill with anyone who wasn't something approaching embarrassing.And it's worth noting that in 43 seasons with the DH, only 13 times has a Twins player put up more than 1 win above replacement during a season in which he spent 50% or more of his time as the DH. I didn't have a great sense of what that means either, but the Yankees have had 21 such seasons, the Royals 18, and the Rangers 23, to take the first three I checked. I'm pretty comfortable saying 13 times is not great. At the same time, though, there have been some good performances, and maybe more than you remember. Here are the ten best, ranked by Baseball-Reference's batting runs component of WAR (since WAR itself would include credit or demerits for time spent in the field, which I don't particularly care about here): 10.) Jose Morales, 1980: No relation to the late-last-decade backup catcher, this Morales was a journeyman first baseman who appears to have been viewed as a strict platoon player, getting almost twice as many plate appearances against lefties as against righties--a bit strange, since his splits are hardly overwhelming (744 OPS against LHP, 733 against RHP). In 1980, he was used almost exclusively as a designated hitter against lefties, or as a pinch hitter when a lefty came into the game, hitting .303/.361/.490 in 269 PA, 212 of them against southpaws, even though he fared at least equally well in his 57 PA against same-sided pitching. He gets held down a bit (9 batting runs) due to his low playing time; the 125 OPS+ is 8th among Twins DHs with at least 200 PA in a season. 9.) David Ortiz, 2002: Ortiz owns the seasons with the 5th, 11th, 12th, 26th, 28th, 34th, 46th, 60th, 66th, 78th, 110th and 198th most batting runs all-time for a DH, but all of those seasons came with some other team, because Doug Mientkiewicz's defense was just that good. He's also got the third-most batting runs for a DH all-time, behind Edgar Martinez and Frank Thomas. He's only on this list the once, though: he played in 125 games for Minnesota in '02, 95 of those as the DH, and hit .272/.339/.500 (120 OPS+), good for 10.1 batting runs, with 20 homers. That represented a huge step forward from 2001, but the Twins must've figured the 26-year-old had peaked. Whoops! 8.) Craig Kusick, 1976: Quick, click that link and check out those shades and that 'stache. Then guess where he was born, and look below and see if you were right! Wasn't that fun? Anyway, Kusick filled a similar role in 1976 and '77 to the one Morales filled a couple of years later. The plate appearance difference wasn't quite as stark, but maybe it should have been, as Kusick hit just .223/.264/.379 against right-handed pitching in '76 and .193/.282/.339 against them in his career. Kusick still got most of his PA against lefties in '76, and crushed them, winding up with a .259/.344/.432 overall line in 306 PA. He did about the same thing in '77, but quickly fell off after that. 7.) Glenn Adams, 1977: Brought over from the GIants to serve as Kusick's platoon partner that second year, Adams faced a lefty only 7 times, going 0-for-5 with two walks, but hit an eye-popping .345/.378/.477 in 283 plate appearances against righties to give him a 130 overall OPS+. He'd never approach that kind of success again, putting up an 88 OPS+ in his five remaining seasons. 6.) Chili Davis, 1992: Thanks mostly to the 60% drop in home runs from the previous season, Davis's year, like so many other things about 1992, felt like a huge disappointment--and it was disappointing, a little. Still, though, Davis hit .288/.386/.439, good for a 130 OPS+--third on the team behind Puckett and Mack--and 17.5 batting runs. 5.) Miguel Sano, 2015: Only 80 games, 335 PA, and with 18.4 batting runs, it was still the fifth-most productive DH season in Twins history. He also holds the Twins DH strikeout record, with two more than Jim Thome's 117, but never mind that. That was fun. 4.) Paul Molitor, 1996: With the benefit of park factors and normalization, it's not quite as amazing as it seemed at the time that Molitor could come home at age 39 and bat .341. The park-adjusted league average line that year was .278/.352/.447, so Molitor's .341/.390/.468, which would've generated MVP talk 20 years later, was good for "just" a 118 OPS+. Still a great season, though, and Molitor played all but one of the team's games, leading the league with 225 hits and the team with 113 RBI. That was about all he had left in him, as it turned out, but Molitor and Knoblauch provided a good deal of excitement on what otherwise was a pretty depressing '96 team. 3.) Jason Kubel, 2009: Oh man, oh man. Remember this? Former top prospect busts out at age 27, hitting .300/.369/.539 (137 OPS+) with 28 homers and 35 doubles, appears poised for a six-to-eight-year run of dominance. That was as good as it got, of course; he'd never play in as many as 146 games again, and never came particularly close to that level of production again. But that was a helluva year. Kubel was a special kind of terror against right-handed pitching, batting .322/.396/.617 with 26 of his 28 homers when he had the platoon advantage. 2.) Chili Davis, 1991: You knew this would be here, right? Davis is one of only two players on this list who played as few as two seasons in Minnesota (see #1), and is the only player who appears twice on this list. It turns out I had another homer-related prejudice against Davis; I had always thought he tailed off badly that season, since he had 19 homers at the All-Star break but finished with "just" 29. But it turns out he was probably even better in the second half, just different: .269/.366/.521 before the break, .287/.407/.492 after it. It was an all-around great year at a really tough time to be a hitter, and of course, helping to lead the team to a world championship helps, too. 1.) Jim Thome, 2010: There have been a few hitters in my time as a Twins fan who I felt like I had to drop everything to watch: Mauer, Puckett, Knoblauch, and Shane Mack for me, at various times in their careers, each for his own idiosyncratic reasons. But Thome is the only one that gave you the feeling that at any time the next pitch might just suddenly disappear somewhere over a neighboring county. He turned 40 in August of 2010, and he played in only 109 games, with only 340 plate appearances (and is the only one on this list not to take the field with a glove even once all season), but every one of them was An Event. I can't write responsibly about it, because his time with the Twins was just so great. Just , instead. I want to marry that clip.Thome's 31.7 batting runs top Davis's by nearly three runs in just over half the number of PAs, and his 182 OPS+ is second in Twins history (minimum 250 PA) to Justin Morneau, from that same 2010 season. He was just. I mean. I need some time here. So there's a lot of fun there at the top, but overall, it's a pretty underwhelming list. The Twins had the first DH, kind of, but have never quite found the right guy to take the job, or at least not for long. It will be interesting (I hope!) to look back at this at the end of the year to see where Byung-ho Park fits in, if he makes the cut at all. His ZiPS and Steamer projections would almost certainly put him somewhere in the top five, for whatever that's worth. Click here to view the article

Five days ago, in his first spring training at-bat, Byung-Ho Park, batting sixth, strode to the plate with the based loaded and two outs. He struck out. Today, Byung-Ho Park, batting sixth, strode to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. He hit a grand slam. That’s called Progress.Progress is that which Twins officials have been wishing for their big international free agent since they signed him: not Success but Progress. They have reliably assured fans that adjustments would need to be made before Park successfully transitioned from Korean baseball to MLB, and those adjustments might not happen quickly; maybe not in spring training. Their scouting of his swing was not that it was Ready For The Show; it was that it was conducive for The Show. It has the raw material that an MLB player needs. Neither the strikeout five days ago nor the grand slam proves anything in that regard, of course. But it’s nice to see an upward trajectory. Indeed, that is the one thing upon which the Twins have been counting. Speaking Of Upward Trajectory The other play that stood out today in the Twins 5-4 road win over the Rays was defensive. In the eighth inning, Rays minor league outfield Johnny Field launched a long drive to the gap in right center field. It looked like it might be a home run, but the Twins right fielder ranged deep into the gap, caught the ball up against the wall, came down, spun around and threw back into the infield to eventually double off the runner at first base. It took me a moment to process this. Once I confirmed that I last had Oswaldo Arcia in right field – it took me another moment to process it. I eventually waited until he and the center fielder (Joe Benson) jogged in together to believe it was truly Arcia. And even that isn’t true. It wasn’t until people applauded Arcia that I convinced myself I hadn’t gotten he and Benson mixed up. (And even then I waited to see if someone else would tweet it first.) What my mind couldn’t grasp was the Arcia would have the range for that catch. Last week, Ryan talked a little about Arcia and what he had seen from him so far in camp. “He spent the entire winter down in our camp,” said Ryan. “He’s in good shape.” He certainly looked it today. Ultimately, Arcia’s shape and his glove aren’t going to determine his future. It’s going to be his bat, and that still hasn’t shown much this spring training – he struck out twice today, once against each handed pitcher. But as Ryan reminded us all “He’s got talent.” Mixing It Up Kyle Gibson threw two innings, and looked like he was willing to throw all of his variants in his first outing. Toward the end of his stint, when he fell behind 3-0, he went with fastballs to even the count but went back to an offspeed pitch (I think his change-up) to get a ground out. He finished the outing with a strikeout looking on another offspeed pitch. It’s Spring Training For Everyone Today’s reminder that It’s Spring Training For Everyone goes to, well, everyone involved with the first run the Twins gave up. It started with an error by Eduardo Escobar to get the lead runner on base. The runner advanced on a wild pitch that was mostly catcher John Ryan Murphy’s fault. The runner advanced to third base on a stolen base that was pitcher Glen Perkins fault; he simply didn’t check the runner at all. And finally the run came home on a sacrifice fly. Stuff I Don’t Get Michael Tonkin pitched the sixth inning today. His first two pitches were 95 mph fastballs - and both were hit hard but ended up being long fly balls. He struck out his final batter on seven pitches. He’ll likely make the team if for no other reason than he has no options left, but it’s hard to see how a reliever with a 95+ mph fastball (his first warm-up pitch was 97) hasn’t already made the team. But of his nine pitches today, six were that fastball and none of them got a swing and a miss. Lightning Lineup Notes Byung-Ho Park started at first base today, the first time he has been in the field.Carlos Quentin played in right field for the first time this spring. He had been at first base or DH. Arcia also played right field for the first time this spring. It was also the first time he has played but hasn’t started.Danny Santana got his first start of the spring in center field. Click here to view the article

Spring training is made for hope. The sunshine chases away winter’s sobriety, and dreams attach themselves to us, and we in turn attach them to others. “Is this the year of Byron Buxton’s sizzle? Oswaldo Arcia’s controlled aggression? Byung Ho Park’s power?” We look for that breakthrough year before it even starts. We are lightning chasers.Unfortunately, on the sunny fields of the Red Sox’ jetBlue Park yesterday, there was no sign of lightning. Or of storm clouds. Or even of really bad static cling. Three of the Twins players, to whom the highest of hopes are attached, started in the Twins 7-4 victory, but none looked like a magical season was imminent. Byron Buxton made two of the Twins first six outs, both from strikeouts, and one of them was looking. That was reminiscent of his introduction to the majors last year, where he struck out 44 times versus just six walks in his first 129 at-bats. He did manage to leave the game on a better note, getting an RBI on a ground ball single in his third at-bat. The Twins had a small rally going against Boston left-hander Henry Owens in the first inning when Oswaldo Arcia stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. Terry Ryan talked before the game about how hard Arcia worked in the offseason, how he had learned from last year and how he had been “humbled.” Facing one of those nasty southpaws, against whom he has a .231 batting average and a 614 OPS in his career, was a tough test for the first at-bat of a new season. He also struck out, and finished the day 0-3 and leaving six men on base. Finally, it was an inauspicious start for the Twins big free agent signing, Korean slugger Byung Ho Park. He not only went 0-3, but didn’t put a ball in play, striking out three times. He admitted he was a little revved up before the game. “I’ve got to admit, I was a little nervous,” he said after the game. “But I felt good and got the first [game] out of the way.” All of this means absolutely nothing, of course. These are truly the three most meaningless at-bats of the year for these guys. They mean only what one wants them to mean, or what one has attached to them. But the lighting chasers will need to wait another day. That’s all right; we’ve got 194 more games to dream. Phil’s Belt Holder? Phil Hughes started today’s game throwing 19 pitches over two innings and then finishing with 15 more pitches in the bullpen. He was followed by Trevor May for two innings, who everyone insists is competing for a starting pitching spot, despite his performance in the bullpen last year. It’s clear everyone understands the situation: the rotation is crowded and May would instantly become a valuable contributor in the bullpen. For now, he’s on the starting pitching track. Before the game Twins General Manager Terry Ryan said he talked to May about making sure he was “stretched out” to pursue a starter’s role before he came to spring training. May thinks he’ll be pitching every fifth day or so, taking the innings behind Hughes like he did today. Or, as he said, “Holding onto Phil’s belt and walking behind him.” As good-natured as May seemed to be about the situation, he also made it clear he would prefer to start. “It’s what I’ve trained my whole life to do,” said May. “Watching baseball and the playoffs and all that stuff after the season kind of lit a fire a little bit to go up and say ‘I can take the ball in Game One of the series.’ I wanna be the guy that they can hop on the back a little bit and go deep into games and then throw in the pen when they need me later.” But the situation is what it is. “He is a candidate,” agreed Twins Manager Paul Molitor after the game. “[but if we have] six or seven healthy starters and they’re all performing, we’re all going to have to decide how we’re going to prioritize shaping the entire staff, not just the rotation.” To me, that sounds like May is a backup plan, regardless of how he is being prepared. Don’t You Forget About Me Here was the middle of the Twins lineup yesterday. See if you can find the choice that made me raise my eyebrows, especially considering they were facing a left-handed starter. 3. Kennys Vargas – (SH) 4. Miguel Sano – (RH) 5. Oswaldo Arcia – (LH) 6. Byung Ho Park – (RH) Byung Ho Park is projected to be the designated hitter for the MLB club, while Kennys Vargas will likely have a similar role in AAA-Rochester. But Vargas is the one batting 3rd, and Park is batting 6th? It makes sense in that Park is seen as more of a power threat while Vargas is viewed as more of a “pure hitter”. I don’t think it means anything, other than we might not want to forget Kennys Vargas is still in this organization. Speed Thrills In his third at-bat, after two strikeouts, Buxton tried laying a bunt down the third base line. It didn’t work; it eventually rolled just foul. But a couple of things struck me about it. First, it was a great bunt. It nearly stayed fair and even without his blazing speed, most ballplayers could have turned that bunt into a hit. With his speed, it was never in doubt. The only hope was that it would go foul. Second, lord is Buxton’s speed fun to watch. I hope he adds that bunt partly because it can be a weapon, especially against a third baseman like the Red Sox’ Pablo Sandoval. But I mostly hope he adds it because it is so damn fun to watch him turn a dribbler into a TKO. By the time Buxton is one-third of the way down the first base line, everyone knows it’s hopeless. The rest of the play is the world’s fastest victory lap. Today’s reminder that it’s spring training for everyone Newly acquired catcher John Ryan Murphy faced a pop fly in the fourth inning. To track it, he flung off his mask – directly at his own feet. As he stumbled backwards to successfully catch it, he damn near literally stumbled on the mask. It looked like Twins third baseman, Eduardo Nunez, the home plate umpire and the next Red Sox batter all gave him a bit of a hard time about it. For The Lighting Chasers Or maybe we were just looking the wrong way for lightning. One youngster had a hell of a game. 22-year-old Jorge Polanco, who has already had a few very short stints with the major league club, had a home run and a double in his three at-bats, driving in two runs. So long as everyone remains healthy, he’s essentially competing for a utility infielder spot and will play all around the diamond. He started at second base today. Could he get that 13th position player spot? I suspect, unless he gets a chance to play regularly – maybe not as a starting position player but at least someone who they want to sub regularly - the Twins will assign him to Rochester to continue to develop. Still, it’s nice to see him continue to make a good impression. Depth always plays a role in the AL Central. Mid Season Patience And finally, we should mention that Miguel Sano also played even though he was credited with zero at-bats because he walked three times. His patience seems to be in midseason form. Our patience, on the other hand was tested: the much anticipated first play in right field will need to wait because no hits went his direction today. We may not need to wait long. Molitor suggested he might have Sano in tomorrow night’s lineup as well. Click here to view the article

In a special mid-morning podcast, Aaron and John preview the Twins hitters by debating ZIPS projections, cover the news around Twins arbitration eligible players, cringe at Aaron’s apartment/petri dish, note how Harrys.com is affecting your football commercials, and speculate what Aaron would do for $400,000. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article