Sidney Ponson Topic Page

Sidney Ponson's stint with the Twins appears to be over. He has been designated for assignment to AAA Rochester and Garret Jones will be called up to replace the active roster spot.

The Twins lost their 4th straight game on Saturday and dropped 2 games under .500 and 6.5 games behind division leading Detroit. The Twins also have now lost 4 straight series and have just 2 wins to show in the first 8 games of their 9 game home stand. Justin Morneau suffered a broken nose in the eighth inning when an errant throw by Nick Punto bounced up off the dirt around 1st base and hit him square in the nose.

The Devil Rays completely gave this game to the Twins with an inning of the worst defense I may have ever seen at the major league level. After the Twins produced a couple runs in the first, they piled it on in the second with four more. Here's how it went:

Didn't they just play these guys? They sure did, but it didn't go so well, so they'll give it another go.

This was an ugly night for Twins pitching. First, the Sidney Ponson experiment might be nearing an end. I'd give him one last chance before turning to Matt Garza. Ponson gave up 10 hits through 4 1/3 IP and was charged with 6 of the 11 runs scored by Kansas City. The Twins bullpen also continued its early season struggles. Glen Perkins took over for Ponson in the fifth and allowed3 hits and walk through 1 2/3. Perkins has had inconsistent playing time since being called up, so I'd be curious to see how he does once he gets more innings.

The high-powered Yankee lineup was no match for...Ramon Ortiz??? I fully expected another beating from the Yankees, but Ortiz stepped up big-time for the longest Twins start of the season. He allowed just three hits and a walk through eight innings. The Twins offense came around just in time with four runs in the eighth inning to give Ortiz the win. The first two starts of the season for Ortiz have been about as encouraging as possible.

Sidney Ponson had pretty much everything going against him in his Twins debut on Monday night. First, he hadn't pitched in a game in a week and a half and second he was pitching against the high powered Yankee offense. When the game started he also didn't get a lot of help from his defense. There are plenty of excuses to make for Ponson, but the truth his he didn't pitch that well either.

With just a week to go until the start of the season on April 2nd, Sidney Ponson had his best start of the spring against his former team, the Baltimore Orioles. With 2 pretty bad outings and 2 pretty good outings this spring, Ponson has seemingly locked up a spot in the Twins' rotation along with Johan Santana, Boof Bonser and Ramon Ortiz. I expect Ponson to fill out the fifth spot of the rotation. Whether Carlos Silva or Matt Garza will get that fourth spot is yet to be determined, but I'd sleep a lot better at night if I knew it was Garza.

Everyone knows that Carlos Silva is coming off a horrible season. While there are still a fair number of delusional people that think he'll magically turn it around, I think most people that follow the Twins regularly knew in the back of their minds that the Twins had probably wasted $4.5 million dollars when they opted to bring back Silva for 2007. Even with my highly negative view towards Silva, I still thought it was almost certain he'd start out the season in the rotation, but that's starting to look much less likely.

The Twins took a chance and banked on Carlos Silva rebounding from an awful 2006 season when they made the decision to bring him back shortly after the end of the season. Now the Twins are taking a chance on another starter, Sidney Ponson, who had a miserable 2006 season in which he was released by the Cardinals and Yankees.