"Twins star closer Joe Nathan, a rare reliever who's also a team leader, will test his right elbow by playing catch either Saturday, Sunday or Monday in what's being portrayed as a long-shot attempt to avoid Tommy John surgery and save his season. That may be true, but the Twins are not looking at the situation as a lost cause for the year --- at least not yet. Gardenhire, who admits to being perpetually optimistic, said that the Twins have heard from a few doctors suggesting that there's a chance that Nathan might be able to pitch despite his torn ulnar collateral ligament.

"Some say he could pitch through it, others say no,'' Gardenhire said. The list of pitchers who've pitched through the injury doesn't seem to be very long, though. One is Takashi Saito, now with the Braves. The Twins have done a fair amount of research on this. Former Minnesota starter Scott Erickson pitched without that ligament, Gardenhire said."

I was reading Jon Heyman's latest article and came across this nugget of info. How does Saito pitch with that ligament torn??? I have a real bad feeling about this signing.

Good luck with stealing 20 bases. Was he on Tool Academy on VH1 yet? Check out this other link a Met fan provided from May 2008 and Francoeur's prediction of 50-60 walks!
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=roberts032708

Jones agreed with Baker's assertion.

"Esco is high strung and he overreacts sometimes," said Jones. "There was no intent there. If you're going to stand on top of the plate, you've got to expect to get hit. If you do get hit, take your base. There's no sense in getting everybody all geared up. It was unnecessary."

Way to go Chipper standing up for one of your teammates. If you disagree with Yunel's reaction, how about just keeping your mouth shut and not bashing one of your guys to reporters. How does Chipper determine it wasn't intentional? Cubans and Dominicans don't always get along and there may have been history we don't know about.
The Braves need some intensity sometimes to rile things up as they've been playing lately only for the paycheck.

I'm sure most of you are as excited as I am that the Braves have the 7th overalll pick in this year's draft. Hopefully, the draft won't be the only thing we're excited about in June. Please post updated draft sites if you know of any others.
http://www.mymlbdraft.com/MLB-Mock-Draft-2009
http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/seattle_seahawks_rule/2008/10/18/2009_MLB_Mock_Draft