Kazmir good to go for Sunday

Posted Mar 13, 2008 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Mar 13, 2008 at 08:11 AM

Scott Kazmir threw 33 pitches of live batting practice this morning at Progress Energy Park and pronounced himself ready to make his first Grapefruit League start Sunday against the Tigers.

Kazmir said he threw about five changeups, five sliders and the rest fastballs to Joel Guzman and Jon Weber in a session that lasted about nine minutes. Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey and manager Joe Maddon looked on before departing for Fort Myers and today’s game against the Red Sox.

“To me, he looked really good,” said Maddon. “The fastball looked really alive and so did the slider—the slider had some nice bit to it, and a couple of changeups. He looked really good overall.”

Kazmir said the plan is for him to work one inning Sunday, then jump to three innings his next time out and build up from there.

“It felt good, felt great—I threw all my pitches,” said Kazmir.

With that done, I’m off to lovely City of Palms Park.

Here’s the Rays’ lineup, which includes the two principals in yesterday’s festivities from Tampa Bay’s side, Aki Iwamura and Jonny Gomes:

Iwamura 2B
Bartlett SS
Pena 1B
Upton CF
Gomes DH
Rodriguez RF
Longoria 3B
Navarro C
Weber LF
Garza P

Also scheduled to pitch: Howell, Birkins and Talbot