Jason Marquis is the perfect Twin - durable, effective, inexpensive

Not a lot of guys would consider a broken bone to be a fortunate occurrence. Nick Swisher Jersey But Jason Marquis found a silver lining amid the misery. Marquis was on the mound for the Arizona Diamondbacks last August when he was struck by a line drive off the bat of the New York Mets' Angel Pagan. The ball hit him right in the shin. Yes, it hurt like heck. No matter, Marquis finished the inning and then came out for the next inning. What he didn't know was that the liner had fractured his right fibula. After throwing his warm-up pitches and then delivering to Josh Thole, Marquis crumpled. The fibula, on his push-off leg, simply snapped. Ouch! "I don't know if they were trying to tell me something to try to make me feel better," Marquis said. "But they thought it was fortunate that I got a complete break." That's like getting mugged in the subway New York Yankees Jersey and then feeling fortunate because you weren't carrying more cash. "It's better to break all the way through because it heals better," Marquis explained. "Those micro-fractures stay around awhile. Not as much blood flow to help the healing." So all you little athletes at home should remember this lesson: If you think a bone might be fractured, just go ahead and snap it in two. You'll be glad you did. The injury finished Marquis for the season. It was very unfortunate because he had just been traded from the Washington Nationals to Arizona, where he found himself squarely in a pennant race. Marquis, a sinkerballer, brought with him a reputation for durability, too. He goes out every five days and chews up innings. But there's nothing anyone can do about a thunderclap of a line drive like that. Yet bad news for Marquis was good news for the Twins. An otherwise solid pitcher coming off an injury is right in the Twins' wheelhouse. (See Joel Zumaya.) The free-agent price drops a bit. And the front office can sell the player on re-establishing himself while in Minnesota and then going on to make big money elsewhere. Although in fairness to the Twins, they are getting better at re-signing some of the players who make good on their one-year deals. The Twins signed Marquis to a one-year, Phil Rizzuto Jersey $3 million contract. He immediately becomes the team's No. 2 or No. 3 starter, depending on how everyone feels about the maddeningly inconsistent Francisco Liriano on any given day. Marquis appears tailor-made for Target Field. He keeps the ball down, pounding away with his sinker. He also has a slider, change and cutter. But if the sinker isn't working, the rest of those pitches probably won't matter much. It's a natural sinker that dips without the aid of any special arm motion, but for years it was not his bread-and-butter pitch. "I had decent results with it," he said. "Eventually, when I was traded to St. Louis in 2004 and Dave Duncan was the pitching coach, he made me realize how to use it. I always had it, but from then on it became the main pitch." Monday night against Boston, Marquis made his Twins debut. It wasn't pretty. He went 1-2/3 innings and gave up four earned runs. Among his many off-kilter deliveries were three wild pitches. Joe Mauer probably lost Phil Hughes Jersey five pounds running to the backstop. Marquis was on the mound so long, time seemed to stop. "When you're a little jumpy, the sinker tends to flatten out," he said. And he was wound a little tightly for his debut. Marquis came to the park early and more or less walked around all day in anticipation of his evening start. It's understandable, considering he hadn't pitched since Aug. 14 of last season. When the game started, his arm angle was so far off that he kept losing his balance. But at 33, he has been around for a while. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on his first couple of spring outings. "I don't worry about a guy like that," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He knows how to pitch." Marquis said he doesn't know much about Target Field. Its reputation as a pitchers' park played no role in his signing with the Twins, he added. "I heard it was a pitchers' park. But it's always about pitch execution, really," he said. "If you're making your pitches, then the pitcher always has the advantage." Who knows? Marquis could turn out to be the perfect Twin: effective and relatively inexpensive.