Greetings from Port Charlotte, where the Twins and Rays play the first round of the Dukes Knutson Cup. Dukes is a very nice man who has been a press box attendant for the Twins and Rays in the past. We decided to come up with the Knutson Cup because we are a little bored with the Mayor's Cup between the Twins and Red Sox.

Besides, Dukes is from Duluth and attended the U of M.

We (an unofficial committee of writers) actually wanted to come up with a tournament that included the Twins, Red Sox and Rays. We were going to call it the McCarty Cup, because David McCarty has played for all three teams. It's not getting any traction.

But the Knutson Cup has, as it was hatched exactly two years ago today.

The things we do to get through spring training....

Chatted with hitting coach Tom Brunansky this morning about Danny Santana. The young man knows how to hit a breaking ball. He went 2 for 3 on Thursday with RBI against the Red Sox, both hits off breaking balls.

Bruno said they had just worked on hitting breaking balls on the inner half of the plate, because that's where teams will try to get Santana out, He said Santana has been gifted with fast hands that all him to identify and hit those type of pitches.

I asked him how often has he run across young hitters with fast hands, and he pointed to someone walking up from behind me. It was Eddie Rosario.

Rosario checked the lineup card and saw that he's the DH today.

``I like it," he said.

Today's game also is a matchup between Paul Molitor and Kevin Cash, both of whom had never managed a game until this week.


Twins

Jordan Schafer, CF
Eduardo Escobar, SS
Chris Herrmann, C
Kennys Vargas, 1B
Eduardo Nunez, 3B
Eddie Rosario, DH
Max Kepler, RF
Heiker Meneses, 2B
Shayne Robinson, LF

Tommy Milone, LHP

Rays

Nick Frankin, SS
Rene Rivera, C
Asdrubal Cabrera, DH
Desmond Jennings, CF
David DeJesus, LF
Steven Souza, RF
Logan Forsythe, 1B
Juan Francisco, 3B
Jake Elmore, 2B

Jake Odorizzi, RHP