I was at the Dome today.  Took the day off to take my 9-year old, who had the day off from school.

This was my first time seeing Baker in person, but it felt like I was watching Radke or Silva.

He sure threw strikes.  75% of his pitches were strikes (66 out of 88).  He actually threw too many strikes, just like Radke and Silva.  He got Konerko and Thome out, but he made Widger and Mackowiak look like All-Stars. Oh, and he made Podsednik look like a clean-up hitter.

Garcia, on the other hand threw 72 strikes out of 112: 64%. It may not seem like a huge difference, but he got batters to chase bad pitches and to guess wrong.  He didn't didn't get to two stirkes only to groove the next pitch.

Hopefully, Baker learned something watching Garcia.  Something he seemingly isn't going to learn from Anderson and the Twins' system.

Eyre looked lost trying to worry about Podsednik dancing off of second and pitch at the same time.  It was painful to watch.  At least with both of these young pitchers (unlike Radke and Silva), it could be chalked up as a necessary learning experience.  Especially if they watched Garcia.