Matt Shoemaker came out of the Twins' final spring training tuneup feeling confident.
"Really confident," were his exact words.
The righthander, who went three innings in Tuesday's 1-1 tie with the Pittsburgh Pirates — will be the team's No. 4 starter after manager Rocco Baldelli solidified his pitching rotation heading into Opening Day.
Kenta Maeda will start at Milwaukee on Thursday before Jose Berrios and Michael Pineda round out that series. Shoemaker will start at Detroit on April 5, with lefthander J.A. Happ taking the second game. Maeda will then take that series finale, leaving Berrios as the home opener starter April 8 against Seattle.
"He came into this camp ready to go," Baldelli said of Shoemaker. "He didn't use the camp as a way to ramp really up. From the first bullpen I saw him throw, there was an intensity there. There was a lot of focus, but he was already throwing the ball at a pretty high level for the entire camp."
Baldelli added the reason he chose Shoemaker — a free-agent signing who has accumulated only 18 starts in the past three seasons because of injuries — ahead of Happ in the rotation has more to do with Happ's readiness than anything.
Happ, a free-agent addition who pitched last year for the Yankees, missed the start of camp after testing positive for COVID-19.
"Just giving J.A. every extra day that we could," Baldelli said. "… And truthfully, it's not even a huge point. Mapping things out, any time we see a guy that comes in a little later, or for whatever reason, was held back a bit, we just want to maximize their ability to get ready."
