Josmil Pinto, who has missed the first week of games with a strained right quad, ran the bases yesterday and felt great. But manager Paul Molitor will ease him into things for a couple games, using him at DH instead of throwing him right behind home plate. But don't be mistaken, Pinto will catch a lot this spring and will have a chance to show the coaching staff that he's worked on his skills.
Aaron Hicks spoke about his mental error yesterday when he forgot how many outs there were in a game against Toronto. He knew he was wrong and didn't deflect the blame.
``I made a mistake on the basepaths. It happens,'' he said. ``That's on me. I've just got to keep playing the game the right way.''
Hicks was picked off second base on Monday against Pittsburgh, but the coaches were upset with him then because he would have gotten back to the bag if he hadn't spun his wheels in the dirt. But they weren't happy yesterday.
There has been an impressive run of Twins alumni in recent days. They have run into teams with Alexi Casilla, Grant Balfour, Rene Rivera, David Ortiz, Vance Worley, Francisco Liriano, Deibinson Romero, Deoils Guerra, Pedro Florimon, R.A. Dickey, Liam Hendriks, Danny Valencia, Andrew Albers, Steven Tolleson and Chris Colabello. Casilla is in the lineup today against the Rays.
If training camp ended today, I would take Tommy Milone as my No 5 starter. Let's see how he does today.
Rays
Kevin Kiermaier, CF
Logan Forsythe, 2B
John Jaso, DH
Joey Butler, RF
Corey Brown, LF
Bobby Wilson, C
Alexi Casilla, 3B
Vince Belnome, 1B
Hak-Ju Lee, SS
Jake Odorizzi, RHP
Twins
Danny Santana, SS
Brian Dozier, 2B
Joe Mauer, 1B
Torii Hunter, RF
Trevor Plouffe, 3B
Kurt Suzuki, C
Chris Herrmann, LF
Josmil Pinto, DH
Jordan Schafer, CF
Tommy Milone, LHP
Sign up for our Twins newsletter to get all of the updates sent to you daily.
La Velle E. Neal III has covered baseball for the Star Tribune since 1998 (the post-Knoblauch era). Born and raised in Chicago, he grew up following the White Sox and hating the Cubs. He attended both the University of Illinois and Illinois-Chicago and began his baseball writing career at the Kansas City Star. He can be heard occasionally on KFAN radio, lending his great baseball mind to Paul Allen and other hosts.
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.
Former Twins reliever May set to sign with New York Mets
Maeda finishes second to Cleveland's Bieber for Cy Young Award
Preposterous Game 4 finish makes a winner of ex-Twin John Curtiss
Graterol lives up to Twins' World Series dreams -- for the Dodgers
