Sam Dyson relieved his latest injury isn't more serious

Twins righthander Sam Dyson, battling another bout of biceps tendinitis, will rest his arm for a couple days before attempting to throw again.

And he is relieved.

After retiring three of the four batters he faced Tuesday night at Boston, Dyson didn't feel well.

"I've always thrown through pain and irritation, but there's some times where you can't even use your arm," he said Friday. "That's kind of where I was at the day after I pitched. So I knew something was going on. I thought I severely injured my shoulder. It looks terrible and you never want to have that. I was going to throw through it. I couldn't pick my arm up the next day. Hopefully here in a couple days it will start feeling better when I start throwing, back to where it was last week."

A magnetic resonance imaging exam came back clean, and Twins manager Rocco Baldelli believes the injury is similar to the one that Dyson had shortly after being traded from San Francisco at the July 31 deadline. So the plan is for Dyson to rest several days before picking up a baseball and see if that helps.

"We've had a chance to see what he looks like when he's rested and feeling good and it is very impressive," Baldelli said of Dyson, who's given up nine runs in 11⅓ innings since the trade. "We're going to give him a little bit of time, but we have reasons to believe he will be back out there and pitching for us this year."

Fernando Romero is back, and he's confident.

It wasn't always the case this season, as he posted a 7.78 ERA in eight outings with the Twins and going 2-4 with a 4.37 ERA in 35 games for Class AAA Rochester. This was the same pitcher who had a chance to make the club out of spring training, until an inability to throw strikes derailed that opportunity and led to an uneven season with the Red Wings.

The reason was bad mechanics. The righthander was unable to repeat his mechanics, which led an inability to throw strikes consistently. So it was time for a change.

By July 12, he had begun overhauling his mechanics, switching to a three-quarters delivery to help is command. In eight outings over the final weeks of the season, Romero posted a 2.70 ERA with eight walks and 12 strikeouts in 10 innings. All of the runs, and three of his walks, came during an Aug. 23 game against Syracuse. Other than that, he was around the plate more.

It has him optimistic that, when he is given the ball, he will show the Twins the stuff that made him one of their better pitching prospects.

'"I have a new angle," Romero said. "I'm comfortable with it. I can command all my pitches better, oh yeah.

"All I'm trying to do is get hitters out quicker."

Marwin Gonzalez, out since Aug. 28 because of an abdominal/oblique strain, has been taking swings off soft tosses every other day as he waits for the go-ahead to increase activity.

He is trying to be patient, but it's not easy.

"It's been way too many days and I've been bored," he said. "Excited that the team is playing this way, but it's been probably, I think, a lazy 10 days. I'm excited and I want to get back as soon as possible."

Before Friday's game, the Twins held a moment of silence for Hal Naragon, who played catcher with the Senators and Twins from 1959 to '62 and was the Twins bullpen coach from 1963 to '66. He died on Aug. 31 at age 90.