Phil Miller covered three seasons of Twins baseball, but that was at a different ballpark for a different newspaper. Now Miller returns to the baseball beat after joining the Star Tribune as the Gopher football writer in 2010, and he won't miss the dingy dome for a minute. In addition to the Twins and Gophers, Miller covered the Utah Jazz and the NBA for six years at The Salt Lake Tribune.
CLEVELAND -- Even though the Twins weren't quite ready to say it after Friday's 7-1 loss to the Indians, it looks like Carl Pavano is heading to the disabled list. So they'll likely need a new starter for Wednesday’s game in Kansas City.
The smart money is on Liam Hendriks, who is 3-0 with a 2.93 ERA in five starts for Class AAA Rochester. Hendriks frustrated Twins officials with some mental lapses in his first performances after getting demoted, but he's had time to work through some things.
And let's face it: the options are limited with Scott Diamond, P.J. Walters and Cole De Vries already in the big league rotation.
* Ryan Doumit, who started at catcher and had three of the Twins’ six hits, said Pavano’s biggest problem Friday was he couldn’t keep his change-up down.
“That’s his bread-and-butter pitch, and my hat’s off to him,” Doumit said. “He’s battled through some injuries, and he’s out there competing. He’s not 100 percent -- everybody knows that -- and he’s still out there battling.”
* Twins manager Ron Gardenhire heard before the game that Twin Cities radio legend Dark Star had been found dead today at age 66.
“Very tough,” Gardenhire said. “He’s a friend, and I’ve known him for quite a while here. And he’s a big Twins fan. Always seemed to be on our side, always rooted for the Twins, always had a lot of really, really good things to say about the Twins. So we’ve lost a very good friend, and a very good person in the Twin Cities that has entertained a lot of people. Dark’s a good friend of mine, and a really good friend of Tom Kelly’s, and we’re all going to miss him dearly."
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