FORT MYERS, Fla. — At some point, Eduardo Nunez must have looked around the Twins' bus to Dunedin and wondered: What am I doing here?
At 28 and with six years of major-league experience, the utility infielder has roughly as much time in the big leagues as his other 24 teammates today — combined.
Yes, it's an extremely young team that boarded buses at 7:30 this morning, headed for Dunedin to take on the Blue Jays. Fans of the Twins' bright future will love that lineup, featuring Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario and Adam Brett Walker. And check out the velocity lurking in the Twins' bullpen, behind starter Tyler Duffey: Alex Meyer (I wrote about his attempt to get his career back on track in today's paper), J.T. Chargois, Nick Burdi, Jake Reed and Mason Melotakis.
Meanwhile, the veterans remained behind for a game with the stripped-down St. Louis Cardinals. Like the Twins, the Cardinals asked only a couple of veterans to take a long bus ride, so the names in the St. Louis lineup will be unfamiliar to most. Well, with one exception: Eric Fryer, who spent much of the past two seasons as a backup with the Twins, will do the catching.
The outfield in the main game in interesting, too, with Danny Santana back in center field, flanked by a couple of 30-somethings who sat out last season: Ryan Sweeney in right and Carlos Quentin in left.
Ricky Nolasco gets his first start of the spring in this game, after giving up three runs to the Red Sox last week and recording just four outs. The Twins will look at some left-handed relievers behind him, with Buddy Boshers, Logan Darnell, Aaron Thompson, Ryan O'Rourke, Mike Strong and Dan Runzler all available.
Here are the lineups for today's pair of games, neither of which is available on TV or radio:
CARDINALS
