Notes, quotes and comment

I skipped the Twins Caravan visit to Mankato Tuesday evening. Usually I have an excuse -- I work most evenings -- but this year I was off, and I still didn't go. I've seen enough of them to last a good long while.

So I missed Terry Ryan, who came down here to talk about the need for immediate improvement. I'm sure he didn't notice my absence.

The Free Press skipped the caravan visit entirely -- Tuesday is a heavy high school sports night -- but Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com was there and filed this report.

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And often is heard a discouraging word department: Johan Santana has been ruled out of the winter league playoffs with "discomfort" in the front of his left shoulder. It gets increasingly difficult to imagine him ever returning to a major league mound.

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Here's something to make me suspect that MLB is serious about cutting the time of games; They intend to enforce the time gap between innings, which typically last longer than the rules allow.

This will disrupt TV producers more than the players. Which is fine by me. Baseball's attitude on TV should be: You're broadcasting the game, not controlling it. (Another one I'd like to see: If TV wants to show some between-innings thing, such as singing "God Bless America," fine -- but they don't get extra time to air their ads too.)

So pitchers have to be done with warm ups 30 seconds prior to the inning starts? What do we do for those last 30 seconds?
— David Price (@DAVIDprice14) January 21, 2015

Don't take Price's complaint seriously, He is one of the slowest working pitchers in baseball. What's he going to do with those final 30 seconds? The same thing he does before every pitch. Nothing.