Saturday GameThread: Jays @ Twins

The Jays are making the 200 k drive from Dunedin to Fort Myers to play the Twins today.

The game will be on MLB.TV today, not on Sportsnet....they have soccer this morning. If you want to listen to Wilner, it’s on MLB.Audio with him and whoever is joining him today.

Casey Lawrence gets the start. I’ve followed Casey for a long time now, he was an undrafted minor league signing, way back in 2010 and he’s made a slow progression through the minor league system since. Last year he split time between New Hampshire and Buffalo, making 28 starts, throwing 162 innings. In 7 minor league seasons, he’s thrown 964 inning. Since they didn’t invest much in him, they have really haven’t worried about building up his innings slowly. He had a 3.83 ERA in Buffalo last year. He is 29 now, never really a prospect, but I’d love to see him come up for a spot start at some point or get in a few innings somewhere along the line.

Dalton Pompey finally gets a start. He’ll be heading off to join Canada’s WBC team soon. Their first game is March 9th against the Dominican Republic, which really doesn’t seem fair. We get the DR and USA in our pool.

With the long trip, we don’t have many regulars. Good to see Morales in the lineup after he was hit by pitch yesterday and left the game. I’m going to be watching to see if Urena settles down and makes good throws today. He seems to have been wild on at least one throw a game. Tellez isn’t on the bench today.

Our lineup: