David Hernandez is headed out of town tomorrow to attend the funeral of his grandmother, but he got some cheering news today when Andy MacPhail and Rick Kranitz called him in and told him he had won the fifth starter job.
"I knew it was going to be a tight race coming into spring training,'' Hernandez said. "All I was looking forward to, I wanted to have fun and to be more relaxed than I was last year. It paid off. I was able to do well enough in the eyes of the coaches....As long as I got my work, I knew somebody would watch, somebody would notice. I just got a couple of starts and I'm thankful I was able to do well in those starts."
Though there was strong speculation over the weekend that Hernandez had won the job, he said that the news -- which he got just about an hour ago -- was not expected.
"There was definitely shock value,'' he said. "I was surprised to be honest. It's everybody's dream to be on a major league roster, let alone on the Opening Day roster. It's something special. I felt like I was not the lead candidate going in, but you can't look at it like that. That just makes you want to work harder. Hopefully, I pushed Tillman to get better and I pushed Berken to get better. He's going to start plenty of times. There's no doubt about it. He's that good of a pitcher."