I love Brandon Morrow.

Last year, Morrow’s body was absolutely dead after starts. Way worse than is the case for the average pitcher. Now we get to find out whether that was because he wasn’t stretched out properly, or because his body isn’t cut out for it. I’m very concerned that it’s the latter, but at least we’re going to find out for sure. Here’s hoping we give him as much time as he needs.

Brandon Morrow is likable again!

club control will be over.

But hey, at least he’s going to have to work on his secondary stuff, because throwing 97 somewhere in the general direction of home plate won’t cut it for starting.

John Hickey on baseball america says:

“(Jeff) Clement’s troublesome knees had improved to the point where he was catching in the bullpen for Triple-A Tacoma. He had been confined to DH since early May.”

It’s almost like all of our bad positional decisions are starting to solve themselves. What’s next? Yuni goes on a diet?

and this is payback for the diabetes jokes.

did we ever find out that it was really him or not?

And how many rounds will there be tomorrow?

This has zero chance not to add to our Brandon Morrow meme collection!

Part of me wants him to settle in and succeed as a starter so we can have him up here as a #4 guy.

Part of me wants him to be just good enough to trade him away to a team that has infinite patience with headcases, in the hopes of getting back a quiet, self-assured middle infielder that can hit .260 and give a damn.

And after several questions about Ackley (he sees him in the outfield, 2011 isn’t unreasonable, hopes to sign him early so that he can maximize his development time this year), Mitch lobbed him a hardball question about Morrow. He asked him no less than 3 times, and in no uncertain terms, “did Brandon Morrow come to you and ask to start, and did you talk about him going to Tacoma?”
He artfully avoided an outright answer to the question beyond “we haven’t decided anything for sure yet”, but in his dodging around I came away with the following impressions:
-Morrow’s shift to the ‘pen was partly because our pitching was so suspect (he said worst ERA in baseball coming out of ST), and because he was the only guy on the team with some closing experience.
-Now that we have a few guys who have established themselves as capable of pitching in the late innings (he’s “tickled pink” about Aardsma, very pleased with Kelley and White), it gives more flexibility.
-RRS and Corco are the two names he threw out for pitchers we may need to make some room for.
-Kept stressing the BS about Morrow not getting enough innings in Spring Training still being an issue.
-No matter what happens, he’s going to make the best decision for the club.
-Morrow “just wants to play major league baseball”.
-Plan is to start stretching Morrow out into 2, 3, 4 inning outings and see how that goes.
-He’s talked to Morrow many times, about lots of things, but no decision has been made to send him down to Tacoma or convert him to a starter.

“Talked to Morrow. He’s a starter. However long he needs in the minors, he is ready for it and wants to do it right.”