"I can't wait for the e-mails and phone calls about Pedro Martinez."

First things first, a happy birthday to Mr. Santana. Johan's 30th birthday comes on the heels of his first Grapefruit League start. He threw 47 pitches going 2 2/3 with two strikeouts, a hit batsman, and a monster shot let up to Dan Uggla. He used all of his pitches hitting 91 on the radar gun once with his fastball, but really stayed in the 87-88 mph range all night. His location looked good and that was the most important thing for me. Let's see how he feels today.

Tim Redding - boy was that painful to watch. The only good thing that he can get out of that mess and "hang his hat on" as Ron kept saying is that his ERA dropped to 40.50 for the spring. Yes that's right, dropped to that. His fastballs were topping out at 86. When he could muster to get it to that speed it was going up and outside to lefties and getting served up on a platter to righties. He seems to have no command of either his pitches or his location out there. When asked about the outing by reporters, Redding said - "I can't wait for the e-mails and phone calls about Pedro Martinez." That might actually be an understatement.

Boy I really didn't think I'd be saying it but I might go there. No I won't. Livan Hernandez will be an adequate 5th starter if Redding should falter. I'm sure it won't be him all season either. Perhaps Redding and Garcia go through extended springs and come up to rotate in and out. Maybe Niese comes up after the break to throw a few games. There is never really any certainty to the 5th spot in the rotation, and it's often a smorgasbord of guys. Frankly I'm okay with that. As much as I love Pedro and what he did for the organization, I have my closure and it really is time to move on from the last two years of "if I'm healthy."