It’s Not a Twin-Killing, but ...

The Angels put a season-opening hurt on the Seattle Mariners with their three-game pummeling at Safeco Field, but no team absorbed more pain in the first week than the Minnesota Twins, who had barely left Florida when they were forced to remodel their roster.

“This is not exactly what we had in mind,” General Manager Terry Ryan said by phone. “You spend all winter and spring putting together a roster and all of a sudden you’re in a situation where we’ve had to bring three, four, five guys up from the minors already.

“We all know that injuries are part of the game, and hopefully we’ve gotten ours out of the way early, but you hate to have to start piecing things back together in the first week. Hopefully, it’s an aberration.”

First, touted rookie catcher Joe Mauer suffered partially torn cartilage in his left knee and had it surgically removed Thursday. His replacement, Matt LeCroy, normally a designated hitter, then strained a rib-cage muscle and joined Mauer on the disabled list.

Also going on the list were center fielder Torii Hunter (hamstring strain) and pitcher Grant Balfour, who infuriated the Twins by not revealing his shoulder was ailing until they broke camp and he was positive he had a spot in the bullpen.

The Twins are pursuing their third consecutive American League Central title and don’t anticipate any of the injured will be sidelined beyond early May, but Ryan is wary.

“I don’t know if all of this is the result of a full moon or not,” he said, “but there’s really no good time to go through it.”

Staying the Course?

Or is it more like staying the coarse?

Either way, despite 11 consecutive losing seasons, the payroll purge of last season when Brian Giles, Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez were among those jettisoned in midsummer, and the ongoing attendance falloff in Pittsburgh’s new park, Chief Executive Kevin McClatchy likes the direction his current management team is taking the Pirates.

McClatchy celebrated the start of the new season by extending the contract of General Manager Dave Littlefield for two years through 2007 and picking up the 2005 option on Manager Lloyd McClendon, with the club adding an option for 2006.

“I understand there’s frustration out there, it’s natural,” McClatchy said. “We’ve lost for a long time. I also think that once this team starts to win -- I can’t tell you if it’s going to be this year or next year, but when it happens and it will happen -- a lot of this anger will go away just like that.”

Just like that? The Pirates face a long road creating a winning reputation amid deep competition in the National League Central. They opened the season with five rookies on the active roster and two more on the disabled list, and McClatchy might have been grasping at straws in predicting fans “are going to have fun watching the kids develop.”

Pen Pals

Amid the off-season changes that turned his San Diego Padres into a contender in the NL West, General Manager Kevin Towers restructured his bullpen to the extent that, when spring training started, no reliever who was on the 2003 opening-day roster was still on the club’s 40-man roster.

The Padres, however, have issues with a bullpen in which Trevor Hoffman is trying to regain his closer form after two shoulder surgeries, there is a significant setup void with Rod Beck’s departure for personal reasons, and Ismael Valdez will be asked to put his heart on the line in late-inning situations, as he was Wednesday when it was hard to find his pulse in the 11-inning loss to the Dodgers.

Through Friday, San Diego starters Brian Lawrence, Adam Eaton, Jake Peavy and David Wells had given up only four runs in 25 1/3 innings for a 1.44 earned-run average. The bullpen, however, had given up 11 runs in 15 2/3 innings for a 6.19 ERA. Towers was permitted to bump his payroll about $10 million in anticipation of increased revenue in Petco Park, but that stretched only so far.

Time will tell if the bullpen restructuring has created a house of cards.