March 17, 2009

Twins News

Pat Reusse of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune wonders if Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer will live up to his pricey contract that he signed prior to the 2008 season. Reusse uses Jacque Jones as an example, which isn't really far-fetched up to this point. As lovable as Cuddyer is, injuries have gotten in the way of him producing and the Twins are depending on him to deliver this season.

Yesterday, the Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles to snap a losing streak lasting four games. Both Joe Crede and Denard Span broke out of their Spring slumps, in which they were both hitting sub-.100, for at least one day. Crede went 3-3 with his first home run of the Spring. Span went 2-3 with a triple. Philip Humber continued to take care of business on the mound with his 5th consecutive scoreless appearance. The 26-year-old right-hander threw two perfect innings in his first start of the Spring.

Twins shortstop prospect Trevor Plouffe has a new post up at his blog which is simply called Plouffe! In his latest post, he discuses what he likes and dislikes to do with his free time, and also gives us some insight into his band called "Beach Bums." The band is compiled of Twins prospects including Dustin Martin, Toby Gardenhire and Drew Butera (well kind of). All of them played in class Double-A New Britain last season.

According to Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis-Star Tribune, Twins reliever Pat Neshek will play catch tomorrow for the first time since he had Tommy John Surgery. Neshek has done a great job on keeping us updated on his progress since his surgery on his website "On The Road With Pat Neshek."

Make sure to read the Twins Player Profile of Jimmie Hall by Seth Stohs. Stohs gives a lot of information about a former Twins All-Star that many are probably not familiar with. The post is very fitting as today marks Hall's 71st Birthday, so Happy Birthday, Jimmie!

Over the past week, Nick Nelson of Nick & Nick's Twins Blog has been conducting a Twins "Position Analysis" for each position. Today, he looks at left field.

Parker Hageman from Over The Baggy wrote a great article entitled "What Should Be Done With (Jose) Mijares?" Hageman isn't so sure that weight loss is necessarily the cure for Mijares' pitching woes this Spring and believes the Twins just need him time to work his problems on the mound out.

Today the Twins will trim their Spring Training roster from 55 players down to 44 players.

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