Nightly Notes - Game #3

Another day, another win -- gotta love starting the season off with a sweep, especially considering that the Twins are heading into Chi-Town for three games starting on Friday. Here are tonight's notes:

1.) Ramon Ortiz was very impressive today, becoming the first Twins starter to go 7 innings this season. He elevated the ball a little in the sixth inning, but I'll take 2 runs in 7 innings from any of the Twins starters, let alone a guy whose signing some fans were have heart attacks over. Again, I'm not a guy who believes that one start shows what will happen over the course of the season, and this was against the Orioles, so it might not mean that much. It was still impressive, and shows that the signing was perhaps not as bad as some had feared.

2.) With Matt Guerrier's two inning performance today, the last Twins players not yet to get into a game are Chris Heintz, Luis Rodriguez, and Mike Redmond. With Jeff Cirillo hurting, we could see Heintz get into a game (perhaps at 3B) this weekend. Mike Redmond should also get a chance to play on either Saturday or Sunday. When Luis Rodriguez will play is anyone's guess.

3.) I stayed home today because I was sick, and that gave me a chance to catch a little bit of the Tigers/Blue Jays and White Sox/Indians games. If the bullpens don't perform better than that for those two teams this season, it could very quickly turn into a two-way race between the Indians and Twins. The Tigers may have won today's ball game, but you can't give up 7 runs in the 8th inning of a game and hope to win very often.

4.) Enjoy the off-day -- I'll be posting the Red Wings roster sometime in the morning. New Britain, Ft. Myers, and Beloit all kick off their seasons tomorrow, and Red Wings start things off on Friday.