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.
