Thoughts from Game 1

It's over. Thank god, it's over. The long wait for baseball came to a close tonight, as the Twins kicked off their Grapefruit League schedule against the Boston Red Sox today. And god, did it feel good to watch an actual baseball game today.

Here are a few random thoughts from the game.

Things I liked.

Joe Mauer actually tried to pull the ball. I can't think of a game from last season where Joe Mauer actually pulled the ball twice. He tomahawked an inside fastball out of the park in his second at-bat, and the ball he hit in his third at-bat might have gone just as far if the pitch wasn't, you know, below his knees. Still, it's a good sign. A lion's share of the homeruns hit in baseball are pull-jobs. And if Mauer is going to hit for more power in the future, he's going to have to work the count in order to get more pitches he can pull instead of being content inside-outing the ball up the middle. If he keeps it up, look for Mauer's homerun total to go up in 2006.

Torii Hunter is staying back more at the plate. You've got to give Joe Varva some credit. He did his homework in the offseason. When Torii Hunter is going good, he sits back in the batter's box to give him an extra split second to decide whether or not its a fastball or an offspeed pitch. When Hunter isn't going good, he's too far up at the plate and good breaking stuff eats him up. On his first pitch of Spring Training, Hunter stayed back in the box and picked up the hanging curveball Paplebon offered him. The end result was predictable. But that's not the good news. In his post-game comments, Varva made the comment that Hunter "stayed back" and nailed it.

Things I'm mixed about.

Tony Batista is as advertised. He didn't show great range in the field. But he made every play that came his way. Including one that he charged at speeds that could best be described as Konerkoesq. His swing was long and slow, and he seemed to pull his head away before he made contact with the ball. But on the rare occasion that he did make contact, he seemed to hit the ball hard, albeit foul. His pop-up and strikeout isn't going to be enough to convince Gerdenhire that Cuddyer needs to go get his third-base glove out from under his locker though. Oh, and on the good news front, it's good to see Cuddyer not reporting to camp too skinny.

Darrell May has the early lead in the lefty out-of-the-pen race. Or put better, he's the lefty not named Johan Santana who didn't give up the run. Did May show great stuff? Not really, in fact May, Gabe White and Jason Miller all topped out at speeds reached by your average high school pitcher. Which isn't really all that surprising for the first game in Spring Training. May did escape getting hit too hard though, which is enough to win him round 1. Given there are still 20 something rounds left, it's hard to get too excited about that though.

Things I'm dissapointed with.

None. One game into pre-season and my optimism remains unshattered. We'll see what happens with game 2 today though.