The kid stays in the picture

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TEMPE, Ariz. -- Eddie McKiernan can’t help it. As long as the baby-faced, 19-year-old pitcher with braces and a rather wild shock of jet-black hair remains in big league camp, he is going to be the subject of some funny one-liners.

When Torii Hunter first saw McKiernan, a native of Monrovia, he said he thought the pitcher “was a clubhouse guy. ... He looks like he’s about 12.”

After McKiernan walked past a group of reporters in the clubhouse Monday morning, one Internet writer, on his first day in Angels camp, asked: “What, did he win some kind of contest? Win a free week at spring training?”

Quipped Bill Plunkett, the Orange County Register’s multiplatform content producer, formerly known as a beat writer: “He had to get someone to cover his paper route to go to spring training.”

-- Mike DiGiovanna