Dolenc and other notes

Mark Dolenc, the former MSU player who has been making random appearances in the Twins exhibition games the past few days, started Monday in a game televised by ESPN. He went 0-for-4.

I have my doubts that was the plan. Denard Span was reportedly to start in center field, but it was raining in Jupiter and they switched him to DH with Dolnec playing center.

Which makes sense. The Twins may not be thrilled with their options to fill Joe Nathan's slot, but they're even thinner for center fielders.

In more consequential developments less than a week from Opening Day:

• Joel Zumaya, the oft-injured flamethrowing reliever for Detroit, pitched on back-to-back days Sunday and Monday without immediately reporting for further surgery.
• Fausto Carmona — star in 2007, bum since — is impressing people in Cleveland's camp. This is a guy who has walked more men than he's struck out over the past two seasons, but he's apparently getting strikes with his sinker again.
• Mike Redmond is slated to be Carmona's personal catcher this year. Just speculating: Might this decision be based on the notion that some of the Minnesota strike-throwing magic can be transferred to Carmona through the ex-Twins catcher?
• Former Twins shortstop Cristian Guzman has been bounced as the starter in Washington in favor of rookie Ian Desmond.

Around the AL Central

I sure picked a fine time to bench Jason Kubel in one of my fantasy leagues. A pair of three-run dingers in his first two at-bats this afternoon against the Indians.

* What's wrong with the Tribe? Lots of things, actually — like nine guys on the disabled list — but today's sore point is Fausto Carmona — who was a legit Cy Young candidate two seasons ago. He has now allowed nine homers in 60-plus innings with an ERA of 7.62.

He entered the game with a 6.60 ERA — tied with Francisco Liriano for next to worst in the AL among ERA qualifiers (41 pitchers). But ... Carmona has walked more men than he's struck out — for the second season in a row — while Liriano's ratio (28 walks, 50Ks), while not good, isn't horrendous. Ron Gardenhire sounds determined to keep Liriano in the rotation, and one can argue that one either way, but for Cleveland to keep running Carmona out there seems borderline suicidal.

The worst ERA, by the walk, belonged to Tampa Bay's Andy Sonnenstine (7.07).

* Dontrelle Willis made his fifth start Thursday for Detroit. Not good. He blew through the first two innings, walking one guy but throwing a DP ball, so just six hitters. But the third: He hit the first guy, walked the second, struck out the third. Then he issued three straight walks and got pulled. 53 pitches, 24 of them strikes.

There's a large reservoir of good will for Willis; it seems everybody around the game genuinely likes the guy. As a result, his comeback effort this year had gotten generally positive reviews -- positive in the form of "He's an acceptable back-of-the-rotation guy" assessments, which is considerably less than he used to be. Frankly, I haven't seen that. His ERA is in Carmona territory, and so is his walk/strikeout rate.

* Not only did Willis implode, Miguel Cabrera left the game early with a hamstring problem. The Tiger offense has struggled this year — it's the pitching that's carried them to the top of the AL Central — and they can ill afford to be without Cabrera for long.

* For a while, Kansas City was a sexy pick in the division. No more. The Royals are 3-11 in their last 14 games.

* This was Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Chicago White Sox, a couple of days about about Gordon Beckham, last summer's first-round pick: “He's a great player, he's going to be in the big leagues, he's going to be a big part of this organization pretty soon. But we don't have Beckham on our mind right now. I don't and I'm the one making the lineup. If we have Beckham here, we're in trouble.

“That kid needs to play. A lot of people say between Triple-A and the big leagues is one jump. It's a huge jump. In Triple-A you're going to face a good pitcher maybe once a week. Here, it’s every day.”

This afternoon, Beckham's playing third base for the White Sox. Just another example of a manager blowing smoke.