Rays at Twins

Posted Mar 21, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Mar 21, 2010 at 10:50 AM

ROGER MOONEY

FORT MYERS It’s cloudy in Fort Myers as the Rays take batting practice at Hammond Stadium in preparation for this afternoon’s game against the Twins. It’s a Rays split-squad so there are a lot of young faces milling about the field.

The other split-squad is in Bradenton to play the Pirates. Rays manager Joe Maddon is on that trip. Bench coach Dave Martinez has the squad here in Fort Myers.

Bullpen coach Bobby Ramos, who waved home 14 runs as third base coach when the Rays last played at McKechnie, passed up the opportunity to coach third today against the Twins. The reason, according to Martinez, is the Rays dugout is on the first base side and Ramos wasn’t too keen on making the walk across the diamond each inning.

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

The big news from the Twins side of the park is closer Joe Nathan tried to play catch today and it didn’t go well. He will undergo Tommy John surgery on his right elbow and miss the entire season.

For the Rays, right fielder Matt Joyce, who is nursing a strained right elbow, threw this morning for the second time in two days. He said it will be a week before he gets back in the outfield. Meanwhile, Joyce is getting at-bats today with the varsity as the DH and batting leadoff for what he said is the first time ever.

Here are the lineups:

Rays
Matt Joyce DH
Carl Crawford LF
Ben Zobrist RF
B.J. Upton CF
Hank Blalock 1B
Dan Johnson 3B
Reid Brignac SS
Elliot Johnson 2B
Alvin Colina C
Wade Davis P

Twins
Denard Span CF
Orlando Hudson 2B
Joe Mauer C
Justin Morneau RF
Michael Cuddyer RF
Jim Thome DH
Delmon Young LF
J.J. Hardy SS
Nick Punto 3B
Scott Baker P