SEATTLE -- It seemed like a pretty brutal assignment for the Twins' Pat Dean in his second Major League start, but baseball has an odd way of taking expectations and flipping them upside-down.
Friday's task looked daunting from just about every angle. Dean, a 27-year-old left-hander who had been in the Minor Leagues for seven years prior to his call-up earlier this season, had only started a big league game once, and it came six days earlier against the Blue Jays.
On Friday night, he had to take the ball for a visiting team with a 4-19 road record against the surging Mariners, who were in first place in the American League West.