FORT MYERS, FLA. - Kevin Correia's schedule is completely out of whack this spring. His curveball usually takes a few weeks to get sharp, but it's his best pitch right now. The cut fastball normally comes back quickest after a winter off, but he's still tinkering with the release point and trying to better control its location.

And his focus is 2,500 miles away.

Correia is now, too, having left camp after a 14-batter start that seemed to leave him mostly irritated. He flew to San Diego for the birth of his third child, due Friday or so, and he'll likely stew over giving up a run for the second consecutive outing.

"He was probably a little frustrated. He doesn't like giving up runs, as he told us," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "I think there's a lot on his mind right now, so we'll give him that."

His mind wasn't the problem, the righthander said; his pitching arm was. "I was just missing with my cutter, getting it over the plate instead of in," said Corriea, who signed a two-year free-agent contract with the Twins last December. "The cut fastball usually is the easiest [to get ready], but it's a matter of getting used to where you need to start the pitch. As your arm gets stronger, that pitch is going to be a little better."

Diamond's on track Lefthander Scott Diamond will go through his first full-distance workout of spring training Thursday as he works his way back from offseason surgery to have a bone chip removed from his elbow.

He has been throwing from distances shorter than 60 feet, because the Twins want to be careful to not have last year's 12-game winner put too much of a workload on his arm. He's made steady progress on an every-other-day throwing program.

If all goes well, he will start building toward his first spring outing, though he's still 12 to 14 days away from appearing in a game.

Parmalee's lesson When Ryan Howard singled sharply to right field in the first inning, Domonic Brown made what looked like a base-running blunder: He tried to go from first to third on Chris Parmelee.

But the Twins right fielder misfired badly, missing third base by a good 10 feet.

Fortunately for Parmelee, he was given a second chance one inning later, and proved he could learn from his mistakes. Parmelee raced into right-center field for a hit by Pete Orr, then gunned down Kevin Frandsen at third.

"The first one was kind of a grenade. Not on line by anybody's terminology," Gardenhire said. "Then on the second one, he came up and gathered himself a little better. We think he's very accurate when he does it like that."

Up next Justin Morneau will start his fifth consecutive game Thursday as the Twins face Baltimore at Hammond Stadium.

PHIL MILLER