A scrambled bullpen

Joe Nathan got his first save since Oct. 3, 2009. It wasn't easy.

Some interesting bullpen use decisions Sunday by Ron Gardenhire as the Twins got their first win of 2011.

6th inning. Nick Blackburn gives up a home run to Jose Bautista, then retires Adam Lind and Aaron Hill. He should have gotten Edwin Encarnacion too, but Danny Valencia made a poor throw. With the left-handed Travis Snider up and the tying run on, Gardy went to Jose Mijares, who fanned Snider.

Blackburn had thrown just 93 pitches, but he wasn't given the chance to get Snider.

7th inning: Mijares opens the inning by walking the first two men. With the tying and go-ahead men on, Gardenhire brings in Matt Capps, who wriggles out of the jam (sac bunt, comebacker to the mound, fly to center).

8th inning: Enter Glen Perkins for a one-two-three inning.

9th inning: Here comes Joe Nathan, the first of the four relievers to have a two-run cushion. Nathan throws 31 pitches, just 15 strikes (at least officially; I believe he twice struck Bautista out, but the home plate ump didn't agree). With one run in, the bases loaded and the left-handed Lind up, Gardenhire considers bringing in Dusty Hughes; he sticks with Nathan, and Nathan gets the grounder to end it.

What's interesting here? Everything. Mijares and Capps — the top top set up men — were both brought in before the eighth inning and with men on base. Perkins, who probably came out of camp as the third lefty in the pen, got the eight-inning honors. And Nathan was given all the rope Gardenhire had.

It all worked. I applaud the early use of Mijares and Capps in game situations. That essentially forced Gardenhire to come up with a third set-up option. The use of Perkins rather than Hughes in the eighth suggests that Perkins has moved ahead of Hughes in the pecking order. Perkins' success in that outing probably means he'll get more opportunities.

The decision to stick with Nathan is pure Gardenhire. Lind rakes righties and is almost helpless against lefties (career slash line .290/.343./.520 vs. RHP, .218/.265/.344 vs LHP). Couple the numbers with Nathan's struggles, and there's plenty of reason to go to the southpaw.

I surmise Gardenhire wanted to show confidence in Nathan and thus build Nathan's confidence in himself. It would have been real easy for that to backfire — Lind drills a single to drive in two runs, and there's nothing positive from the outing for Nathan.

But again – it all worked.

Pic of the Week

The Milwaukee Brewers work out in the Cincinnati park
on Wednesday, the day before the opener.

A few days ago I lamented the demise of the newspaper box score. As I said, the Free Press downgraded its stats package and no longer receives all the boxes.

We haven't, however, downgraded our photo package. We have access to more good photos than we can use.

So  I'm going to try this notion: Each Sunday I'll post here my Pic of the Week. The only rules are:

• It will be baseball-related.
• It won't be a photo we used in the paper.
• It won't be a photo I used in the blog. 

I'm trying to give you a little something extra, so if I remember even seeing it in one of the metros, I probably won't select it for this.

Run down

The best part of Friday's game
as far as the Twins were concerned.

Well, that was sure ugly.

Earlier on Friday I heard Pat Reusse and Phil Mackey discuss which Twins player would have the biggest falloff in 2011. Reusse picked Francisco Liriano, Mackey Danny Valencia. I was telling the radio: Carl Pavano.

Pavano got the Opening Day start in tribute to his veteranness, but he was part of the first inning jitters-bug himself. Vin Scully used a phrase frequently when broadcasting for NBC (and probably still does): Beaten to death by an angry moth, and that was the first inning for Pavano. An infield hit, a botched pickoff, a ground ball single, double steal, walk, hit-by-pitch, two sac flies, an error, a balk ... Ugly.

Pavano had a stellar 2010 in part because he was very good at limiting the damage. In the first inning of Friday's game, he put gasoline on the fire. Had they gotten the out on that pickoff, it's a one-run inning, but it turned into four runs. Then he started feeding his gopher.

Ah well. There will be better days.

Counting on Casilla

Perhaps the most significant unknown greeting the Twins tonight when they open the 2011 season is shortstop.

Yes, there is uncertainty about the middle relief, and nobody can be sure how durable Justin Morneau's noggin will be. But bullpens are easily remade on the fly, and No. 33 is at least in the lineup.

Alexi Casilla:  His
third, and probably last,
chance to establish
himself as a regular.

But this is the third time Alexi Casilla has been handed a regular's job. The first two times he gave it back.

Now he's being counted on to handle not second base but shortstop, the more difficult defensive spot.

From the neck down, he's fully capable of handling the job. He has the feet, the hands and the arm to play short. He won't hit with the departed J.J. Hardy's power, but he's quite capable of sporting a higher on-base percentage than last year's regular.

The problem is from the neck up. Casilla has a history of mental lapses — losing track of the outs, failing to cover a base.

The idea appears to be that he can be cured of such miscues by adding responsibilities to his assignment. Ron Gardenhire is big on the notion that the shortstop runs the infield; Jason Bartlett wasn't assertive enough for Gardy. Theoretically, if it falls to Casilla to tell Tsuyoshi Nishioka which of them is covering second on a steal, Casilla is bound to know when it's his chore.

We shall see in the coming weeks if this works. If Casilla can keep his head in the game, I don't think the Twins will have any falloff at the position. His talents are differently shaped than Hardy's but not necessarily less useful.

If he doesn't, the Twins have a problem. The most likely in-house candidate, Trevor Plouffe, had a brutal spring training; more important, he's about to begin his fourth season in Triple A and has yet to do anything there there to make the Twins want to give him a shot.

If Casilla fails, the Twins will be looking for outside help yet again to patch the position.

Hi-ho Silva -- away

Carlos Silva has a career record of 70-70,
4.68—and has been paid more than $43 million.

You probably know already that erstwhile Twins innings eater Carlos Silva was dumped Sunday by the Chicago Cubs, who decided it was worth $8 million to tell him to go away.

This from Jim Hendry, the Cubs GM, after Silva ripped the pitching coach on his way out the door:

"Obviously, we're dealing with a man at this particular point of his career that's not willing to face the facts that what he's done the last few years, except for a two-month period (last year), is well below major league standards. And he seemed to make a continual problem of blaming everyone but himself. (He gave up) 29 hits in his first 11 innings of camp, and I've never had anyone I've dealt with classify that as 'bad luck.'"

The first sentence is an accurate statement of fact and sufficient reason to release Silva. The second is ... well, it may be true, but Hendry's spent years as Cubs GM without setting or enforcing behavior standards, and I doubt he's starting now. As for the third, anybody judging a pitcher strictly off 11 innings in an Arizona spring training is being stupid.

Silva is now available to anybody for the league minimum, and it's possible but not certain that somebody will give him a test run. It won't be the Twins; been there and done that, and if they want a sinker specialist on their roster, they have younger options with more upside in their minors.

Setting aside the question of Silva's jerkiness quotient, his career probably establishes a high end return for a pitcher with little going for him other than command of a two-seam fastball.

It's baseball season, people

The Twins aren't among the major league teams playing today -- their opener is Friday -- but there are games that count, and that makes this a good day.

Never mind the Bullock ...

It's been more than 40 hours since the Billy Bullock-Scott Diamond trade went down, and I'm still recovering from the surprise and absorbing the implications.

Bullock and Diamond are both pitchers, and there the similarities essentially end.

• Bullock is right-handed,  Diamond a southpaw.
• Bullock has one pitch, the fastball; Diamond has a legitimate repertoire.
• Bullock has trouble throwing strikes; Diamond has a good control record
• Bullock has a power arm; Diamond throws harder than you or me, but may be a bit below major league average.
• Bullock was a second-round draft pick; Diamond was signed as an undrafted free agent.
• Bullock is strictly a reliever; Diamond has been a competent (or better) starter as he climbed the Braves ladder.
• Because of the reliever/starter difference, Diamond has thrown more innings in any of his three professional seasons than Bullock has in his entire pro career.

Pretty much everybody outside the Twins organization sees Bullock as the better prospect. Baseball America listed Bullock as the Twins 15th best prospect, Diamond at No. 29. John Sickles doesn't list them in any specific order, but he gave Bullock a B- grade, Diamond a C+. Seth Stohs had Bullock at No. 23, Diamond at No. 28. Aaron Gleeman had the widest disparity: Bullock at No. 10, Scott Diamond at 36.

Obviously, the Twins decided they'd rather have Diamond than Bullock.

Now, a necessary caveat: I don't know what the Twins are specifically basing that decision on. I have some observations and interpretations.

• The Twins have had Bullock in their system for a bit less than two years and they had Diamond in camp all spring. They know more about these two than any outsider does.
• No organization does better at teaching fastball command than the Twins. But Bullock's walk rates have gotten worse at each step up the ladder. 
• Diamond increases by infinity the number of left-handed starter candidates in the Twins upper minors. They had none before this deal. 

If the Twins had concluded that Bullock was never going to locate his fastball and/or develop a quality secondary pitch, trading him is a lot more explicable than it appears off his track record. If the Twins had concluded that they really need a left-handed prospect at the upper levels, Diamond's value to them was increased.

The Twins are generally as patient as anybody with pitchers.  They haven't always been right on the pitchers they've kept or acquired, but few of the ones they've discarded in the past decade or so truly haunt them.