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Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Friday, March 10, 2017 Prospect Bengie Gonzalez's bat impressing Twins so far. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 1 Twins pitcher Ervin Santana emerges satisfied from start against Colombia. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 2 Hartman: Dozier stays put; now Twins must rebound from worst season. Star Tribune (Hartman) p. 3 Andrew Miller believes ex-teammate Craig Breslow is ‘on to something’. Pioneer Press (Berardino) p. 4 Twins’ Danny Santana playing through grief. Pioneer Press (Berardino) p. 5 Sticking with Twins, Ervin sees Classic foe anyway. MLB (Bollinger) p. 7 Murphy turns page on trying year, on and off field. MLB (Bollinger) p. 7 Young Berrios a Classic vet for Puerto Rico. MLB (Harding) p. 8 Kirilloff set for rehab after Tommy John surgery. MLB (Bollinger) p. 9 Buxton to ESPN’s Olney: ‘I’ve got a great chance of catching anything out there’. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 9 Twins beat Colombia 10-7 in spring training. FOX Sports p. 9 Cabrera, Altuve hope for best Venezuelan showing yet in WBC. FOX Sports p. 10 Minnesota Twins: Phil Hughes Changing Approach? FOX Sports (Haswell) p. 11 Twins Were Willing To Offer Napoli More Than Rangers. MLB Trade Rumors (Adams) p. 12 For An Ailing Rotation, Twins Have An Anchor In Santana. CBS Minnesota p. 12 Prospect Bengie Gonzalez's bat impressing Twins so far Phil Miller | Star Tribune | March 10, 2017 FORT MYERS, Fla. – Bengie Gonzalez wants to reach the major leagues so bad, he’ll do anything his manager asks, and he’s not kidding. Go by Bengie instead of Benjamin? Sure. OK if we misspell it as Benji? Uh, fine. Move you around to three different infield positions, and even an occasional stint in the outfield? No problem. Gonzalez even smiled, nodded and went right to work when a manager in the Pirates system came up with a not-so-simple recommendation for improving his game. “They said, you should try switch-hitting,” Gonzalez said of that startling suggestion, shortly after he was drafted in the seventh round in 2008. “I had only hit righthanded my whole life, but they told me if I could hit lefthanded, maybe I could use my bunt more and use my speed. They said, ‘You can handle the bat, you can do it,’ so I went for it. But it took me like five years to figure it out.” Those are important years for a teenager hoping to make the majors, and Gonzalez admits it set him back at the beginning of his career, probably slowed his climb through the minors. By 2012, he was comfortable enough to switch-hit full time, but the Pirates grew impatient with his overall hitting progress. Gonzalez, though, insists he has no regrets. He’s 27 now, but he’s a better hitter as a lefthander, he said, having hit .289 against righthanders last year. “I like it now. I love it. I feel great lefthanded,” he said. “I like lefty better, because I see so many righties, and I have good at-bats against them.” The Puerto Rican infielder has had plenty of quality at-bats this spring. Gonzalez’s eight hits are the most by any Twin, and his .571 average (8- for-14) is also the team’s best. And Thursday’s 10-7 victory over Team Colombia was his best game yet. With the score tied 2-2 in the sixth inning, Gonzalez drew a walk, stole second base, and scored the tie-breaking run on Eduardo Escobar’s triple. In the seventh, with the score tied again, 4-4, Gonzalez executed the hit-and-run perfectly, singling to the vacated hole at second base to drive home the go-ahead run. And in the eighth, Gonzalez crushed a 3-1 fastball and drove it onto the berm in left field, a two-run shot that was his first home run of the spring. “It was great. I’m seeing the ball well, I’m waiting for good pitches and not swinging at the pitch that he wants me to swing at,” Gonzalez said. “I was not thinking of hitting a bomb or anything. I was just trying to let the ball get deep and hit it hard up the middle. And he put the fastball middle-in.” Gonzalez even punctuated his big day by ending the game with a slick defensive play, going into foul territory to field a hard grounder and still get the out at first base. He keeps that up, he might find himself in Target Field someday. “He’s done really well. He’s been a pleasant surprise,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “He’s shown the capacity to move around the infield, and he runs a little bit better than average.” Gonzalez signed with the Twins last winter, choosing Minnesota’s minor league contract over Colorado’s, after a strong 2016 at Class AA Jackson in the Mariners system. But as well as he played last year, he was disappointed. The Mariners told him in the spring that he would be the first call-up if they needed an infielder, so when shortstop Ketel Marte sprained an ankle in July, “my heart was pumping. ‘I’m going to the bigs,’ ” Gonzalez said. “All of a sudden, they picked up a guy [Mike Freeman] from the D- Backs. That frustrated me a lot. That’s why I didn’t go back to Seattle.” Twins pitcher Ervin Santana emerges satisfied from start against Colombia Phil Miller | Star Tribune | March 10, 2017 FORT MYERS, FLA. – Ervin Santana had not given up a run all spring. He hadn’t allowed a spring-training home run in nearly two years. Santana did both on Thursday against Team Colombia. Yet he (and his manager) could hardly be more pleased with his performance. The Twins’ Opening Day starter allowed a pair of runs in four innings but also struck out three, got six outs on ground balls and needed only 52 pitches to fulfill his four-inning target, as the Twins beat Colombia’s WBC team 10-7 at Hammond Stadium. “The efficiency is there. He had a good day,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said after the team won its sixth straight exhibition game, and second in a row against a World Baseball Classic-bound national team. “He was getting a lot of choppers down the third-base line, which means he got a lot of movement. … He does make it look easy, the way he goes about it.” It wasn’t so easy for some of the other Twins pitchers, though closer Brandon Kintzler and lefthander Taylor Rogers each pitched a scoreless inning. Bullpen candidates Nick Tepesch, Michael Tonkin and Ryan O’Rourke all surrendered run as the teams combined for 17 runs and 24 hits. Santana’s only hiccups came on an RBI single by Yankees infielder Donovan Solano and a solo home run by Phillies catching prospect Jorge Alfaro. “It was the right pitch, a fastball away,” Santana said of the home run ball, the first he has allowed in spring training since March 18, 2015, a span of 36 innings. “He just got a good swing on it.” Still, Santana was pleased with his third start of the spring. “I was supposed to throw 65 pitches and I threw 52, so it was good. I got a lot of ground balls, a ground-ball double play, so it was good,” he said. As always, he said, his goal was to “throw strikes, get the ball down for the most part, and work fast.” The Twins, who defeated Team USA 3-2 on Wednesday, are 4-1 all-time against WBC teams. Etc. • When surgeon Dr. David Altcheck opened Alex Kirilloff’s right elbow on Wednesday, he found the ulnar collateral ligament completely torn. The 19-year-old outfielder has a new one now after successful Tommy John surgery. The Twins’ No. 1 pick from last summer will miss this season, spending it instead rehabbing the elbow at the Twins’ Fort Myers complex. 2 • Lefthanded reliever Mason Melotakis threw a 25-pitch bullpen session Thursday as he recovers from a strained oblique. Melotakis reported no soreness, but he is unlikely to pitch in a Grapefruit League game this spring. Up next Their WBC-related detour finished, the Twins return to Grapefruit League play Friday against the Miami Marlins in Jupiter, Fla. It figures to be the first professional game that ever featured both Marlins All-Star Dee Gordon and his little brother, Twins shortstop prospect Nick Gordon. Hartman: Dozier stays put; now Twins must rebound from worst season Sid Hartman | Star Tribune | March 10, 2017 The closest the Twins came to a big trade this offseason was moving second baseman Brian Dozier, who was clearly their best player over the past two seasons. The main team they were negotiating with was the L.A. Dodgers, who reportedly were offering pitching prospect Jose De Leon as the centerpiece of their package for Dozier. De Leon, 24, recently was ranked as the 29th-best prospect in the minors by Baseball America, after striking out 464 batters in 348⅔ innings over four seasons. But the Twins wanted more in the package and decided to retain their star second baseman. De Leon eventually was traded to Tampa Bay for a lesser talent in second baseman Logan Forsythe. “That’s why they have trade deadlines and stuff,” Dozier said at TwinsFest before leaving for spring training. “It will probably be an ongoing thing — and I don’t want it to be, that’s the disappointing thing of it — but I’m here.

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