Scott Baker will miss the entire season due to injury for the Minnesota Twins as he undergoes elbow surgery and an ensuing rehab over the next six months. That certainly isn't a good thing for a Twins team that has won just one of its first five games, but all apparently isn't lost.
General manager Terry Ryan went on the record Wednesday and, thanks to the good people at 1500 ESPN, we have the money quote below that describes exactly what will happen with the Twins rotation going forward.
"You're going to find a spot for Jason Marquis, and Anthony Swarzak threw the ball well, and the kid with food poisoning was one of our better performers in spring training," Ryan said. "OK, we've got something to work with there. Our big issue has not been pitching. We haven't hit too much. Our pitchers have done relatively decent job here.
"So let's give these guys a chance to settle in and see exactly what we've got in the rotation. It's not going to be easy to replace the guy that was going to be our home opening starter. But you get put in some situations and you've got to adjust, and that's one of the reasons why we've got a little bit more depth. We went out and signed plenty of pitchers just for the very reason, we were hurt so much last year."
It's interesting that Ryan refers to Liam Hendriks as "the kid with food poisoning" but, aside from that, this should give hope to those worried that Baker's injury is going to throw the Twins into a bigger tailspin than they already seemed to be involved in prior to Wednesday night's win.
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