The mood was pretty sober for Terry Ryan’s pregame remarks with the media, as one might expect coming off a demoralizing 9-2 loss the night before. Ryan touched on a number of topics, including Tommy Milone’s shift to the bullpen, Alex Meyer getting some work in and a quick update on Ervin Santana, who is on the disabled list but threw Saturday and will again Sunday before he’ll throw a scheduled bullpen in Houston on Tuesday.
On whether or not Ervin will be ready on day 16 (i.e. the end of the 15-day stint): “(Let’s wait until he throws) the bullpen on Tuesday, he’s eligible to come off on May 3. Let’s wait until he throws that bullpen. That’ll be down in Houston.”
How much ramping up Santana will need: “Not too much. I don’t know, let’s see what he feels and looks like as soon as he has to crank it up some.”
On Alex Meyer struggling on Friday night despite hitting 97 mph on the radar gun: “It’s not unusual. In this league, 97 doesn’t mean much unless you locate. It also doesn’t mean much unless you have some life. He was a bit rusty; I think that’s safe to give him a little bit of benefit of the doubt that he hadn’t been out there for quite a few days. He was amped up, there’s no question. That wasn’t the prettiest of appearances. Hopefully he’ll be better than that the next time out. We’ve seen the velocity out of him in the past and we’ve seen him be able to spin the ball. Unfortunately he was over the fat part of the plate a little too much. He didn’t have any command, we saw that. Yesterday was not a good game. Period.”
On his level of input regarding the bullpen shift for Milone: “I had input. That’s more than just one person’s ability to make a decision. Obviously, I know exactly what they have in mind. We made that decision. We. Not just the pitching coach or the manager. Which is almost like any decision we make. You know, who comes up or goes down. Any of that type of thing, ultimately, is in unison with the front office. It’s not like I don’t know what’s going on down there. They ask my opinion, I gave an opinion, and they gave me theirs back and we made a call.”
On the level of surprise that Milone was moved from the rotation with Santana and Kyle Gibson hurt: “Well we brought up three (starters). We sat down two on the DL, and we brought up three. You’re not going to bring up Berrios and sit him. Right? You’re not going to bring up Duffey and sit him. As we did with Meyer, we did sit him. There’s a reason we brought those guys up and want them to pitch. The one kid is our best prospect. The other kid has a little bit of a track record of being able to succeed. We make decisions like that a lot. Ultimately it affects people, and we know that. We did that with Pelfrey last year. Sometimes it benefits a guy like Milone last year, and sometimes it doesn’t. We made a decision, we inform them and we move on.”
Finally, with the Twins off to a 7-16 start, Ryan fielded a question on young players, leadership roles and how that can be reconciled with the team off to such a rocky start:
“I’m around (the clubhouse) a lot quite a bit on the road. Actually, I’ve been around that room more this year than I ever have. We’re going through a tough time. It’s about visibility. I didn’t do anything other than I want to make sure I’m accountable. You can’t go through this stretch we’re going through and not feel it. I know they’re feeling it; so am I. We’re going through a bad time. That game yesterday I’m sure was ugly for the fans, but it was uglier for many of us that have a lot of responsibility for this team.”
