A statistic from today to ponder:

New 2006 Twins: 12 at-bats, 8 hits, 4 RBI, .667 avg
Holdover Twins: 23 at-bats, 1 hit, 0 RBI, .043 avg.

OK, that's enough with statistics. You can do too much with 'em. Already, I've heard a couple of announcers and talking heads talk about some player being on such-and-such a pace. Pace, in baseball, is nothing but a cheap salsa served in the clubhouses that can't afford the good stuff. Torii Hunter isn't gonna continue striking out at this pace, and Rondell White is likely to get more than 7 hits every 15 games. Well, he better.

The first 15 games offer RD equal measure of hope and caution.

Hope: The middle infield play of The C-Bees (Castillo and Castro), both for their defense and their bats. Playing defense as he does, Castro is still valuable if he hits .250; Castillo wields the club in Carew-like fashion. There's the argument that he should be batting leadoff, but the No. 2 hitter needs a wider range of skills and Castillo has the whole toolkit. Stay healthy, pal.

Hope: Lewwwwwwwww looooooooooks gooooooooooooooooood with he doesn't play blond. He's the best fielding of the right-field posse and doesn't have much pressure in the eighth spot. And with Kubel at Rochester getting his swings (not to mention Cuddyer and Sierra on the bench) the last thing Lewwwwww cannnnnn doooooooo is get complacent.

Hope: BooBerry is throwin' the PooBerry outta the ball and has returned to the set-up role.

Hope: T-Phat! is a better defensive player than we wanted to admit, and anything above .250 at the plate is a bonus as long as he bangs homers and doesn't have too many terrible at-bats.

Hope: Liriano and Baker. They're gonna struggle at times and one of the things TR was wise to tell me during a chance winter meeting was that there's a difference between going through an opponent's batting order once and going through it a third time. So we can't assume that his dominant relief stints will translate immediately into the rotation. But a solid bullpen would take off the pressure for him to go more than 5 or 6 innings.

Hope: Torii looks healthy, Shannon's arm is just mediocre and not impaired, the new guys have contributed to better chemistry, Morneau has been anywhere from serviceable to good, The Chairman is the Chairman.

Caution: Jesse Crain can't keep blowin' up and expect to be a key member of the bullpen. RD wondered why Gardy turned to him for a third inning when he could have asked Liriano and Rincon to handle a few batters apiece. On the other hand, RD's still wondering how Boo will do in consecutive games.

Caution: Lohse and Radke are scary weak so far. RD trusts that Radke will do the .500 thing, but Lohse ..... don't get me started.

Caution: There are a lot more good at-bats through the lineup in a typical game, but Torii and JustIncredible sometimes seem to slide into their '05 habits and give away too many swings. In addition to the hitting braintrust of Vavra/Oliva/Carew, RD hopes the veteran bats (Sierra, Castillo, T-Phat!, Stewart) can offer wise counsel.

Caution: RD hopes Torii's ankle and Castillo's leg are at least 90 percent.

There are others, but this is lookin' too much like a baseball blog, which is the unfortunate result of following today's game on a computer screen at work. RD's use of the minimize button is like a Santana pickoff move, by the way! But it's hard to work up much sass or emotion when you're reduced to blips on a monitor.

Getting through the weekend with 2 outta 3 would mean a 9-9 record through a nasty opening stretch ... with the next stretch against the Royals, Tigers and Mariners. That would be OK.