Francisco Liriano content with job status

TORONTO - Francisco Liriano will make his 2011 debut Saturday with a clear mind.

The Twins went the whole winter and all of spring training without making him a long-term contract offer, according to two people close to Liriano, but the Twins also told other teams they weren't interested in trading him.

Liriano, 27, is making $4.3 million this year and has two more seasons remaining before he can become a free agent.

"That [contract's] not on my mind at all," Liriano said. "I'm just trying to take what happened last year into this year and learn from my mistakes."

Liriano went 14-10 with a 3.62 ERA and 201 strikeouts in 191 2/3 innings last year. One of those losses came in his final start against the Blue Jays, when he gave up three home runs -- two to Edwin Encarnacion and one to Jose Molina.

"All of them were fastballs," Liriano said.

The Blue Jays love fastballs, and that's the pitch Liriano often has the hardest time commanding. Look for him to feed them a steady dose of his lethal slider, but then again, he's not looking for another outing like March 23 against Baltimore, when he racked up nine strikeouts in three innings but needed 76 pitches to do it.

Nishioka's nerves Twins second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka did a brief interview with the English-speaking media before Friday's 13-3 loss but cut most of his answers short through interpreter Ryo Shinkawa.

Asked if he felt more nervous than he did before some of his openers in Japan, Nishioka said, "It's hard to say how many times more but a lot of times more."

The game was televised in Japan, with an 8 a.m. starting time. Nishioka said his family would be able to watch.

"He's nervous, so there's not much he can really say right now," Shinkawa said.

Nishioka went 1-for-4 in his major league debut, including a sixth-inning single, but made two costly misplays in the first inning.

According to Major League Baseball, of the 836 players on the rosters, 234 (27.7 percent) were born outside of the United States. That's the same percentage as last year and down from the all-time high of 29.2 percent in 2005.

After the United States, here are the countries with the most players: Dominican Republic (86), Venezuela (62), Puerto Rico (20) and Canada (16).

Opposing view John McDonald, the shortstop who accidentally kneed Justin Morneau in the head last July when he suffered his season-ending concussion, was happy to see Morneau back.

"There's a lot of respect for players like Justin around the league," McDonald said. "You hate to see them miss a day, let alone the rest of last season."

Etc. • The Twins' Opening Day payroll of $112.7 million ranks ninth in the majors. Last year, the Twins opened with a $97.6 million payroll, ranking 10th.