HOUSTON -- The formula is pretty simple for Pedro Hernandez, his manager said Tuesday. "Get ahead in the count. If he gets behind, he doesn't have overpowering stuff and he gets in trouble," Ron Gardenhire said of the fill-in starter, who makes his eighth start of the season tonight in Minute Maid Park.
Hernandez is one of those guys who puts the lie to won-loss records; he's 3-1 as a starter, but his ERA is an unsightly 6.19. His last start for the Twins was on June 23, when he beat the Indians in Cleveland as a stand-in for Mike Pelfrey.
The Twins will use an all-Venezuelan battery tonight, with Josmil Pinto catching his countryman. Pinto and Hernandez were born 12 days and less than 100 miles apart in northern Venezuela in 1989, and both signed pro contracts in 2006.
But it's another Venezuelan making news for the Twins tonight -- Oswaldo Arcia is back in the lineup, after playing just once in the last 13 games. His sore wrist is health again, the Twins believe, so he'll be in right field and bat seventh.
Here are tonight's lineups for game five of a six-game trip to Texas:
TWINS
Presley CF
Mastroianni LF
Dozier 2B
Willingham DH
Plouffe 3B
Colabello 1B
Arcia RF
Pinto C
Florimon SS
Hernandez LHP
