M-M-M sold

Three relievers. all with the last initial M, sold to other major league teams: Adalberto Mejia to the Angels. Mike Morin to the Phillies. Matt Magill to the Mariners.

Mejia was a waiver claim, Morin and Magill traded for "cash considerations." All had been DFA'd. What is really going on: the Twins decided the roster spots were more valuable than the pitchers.

Another "M," Trevor May, threw 49 pitches Sunday. He was not particularly good either -- 49 pitches, the most since he became a reliever, of which only 25 were strikes -- and he has now allowed six runs in his last 3.2 innings.

Bottom line: The Minnesota bullpen, which spent much of the first half of the seasons bending but not breaking, has cracked.

As of this morning -- with Zach Littell optioned out after Sunday's game but no corresponding move announced -- the Twins have the following relievers:

• Taylor Rogers
• Blake Parker
• Trevor May (who, I guarantee, is not available today or tomorrow)
• Tyler Duffey
• Ryne Harper
• Kohl Stewart

The word on Twitter late Sunday was that Cody Stashak, 25-year-old righty, was getting the call. Adding him to the 40 is clearly no issue after three DFA's. He has a string of solid strikeout rates in the minors since the Twins drafted him in 2015 (13th round) and this season has been no exception.

I'm not counting on him as a savior. 

Perez, May and Magill

A win is a win; the standings don't add or deduct for style. That said, the Twins are fortunate they were playing a bad team Tuesday, because it really was easy to see them losing that one.

Start with Martin Perez. In some ways, the lefty wasn't all that bad. He struck out seven in his five innings, and more than 62 percent of his pitches were strikes.

On the other hand, he walked three, threw a first pitch strike to only 11 of the 24 men he faced, served up a fat cutter to a top-notch slugger with two on, and kept handing the lead back to the Mariners.

Four runs in five innings is ... not a quality start. Perez hasn't had one of them since May 17. In his three starts since then, his ERA has ballooned from 2.89 to 3.97. (The Twins have gone 2-1 in those three starts anyway.)

Close the carping with Trevor May, who found himself on the mound in the ninth inning for the first time in more than a month. He created a jam right away, allowing singles to the first two Mariners hitters, and needed a generous umpire's strike call to get his first out -- after which it was pop up and fly ball and and game over.

May thus became the sixth Twin to record a save this season: Nine for Blake Parker, six for Taylor Rogers, and one each for Ryne Harper, Trevor Hildenberger, Mike Morin and May. The roleless bullpen rolls on.

The use of May as the closer du jour was a mild surprise. Rogers, clearly the Twins' best reliever, hadn't pitched since Thursday. Parker, frequently if erroneously called the Twins closer by the FSN broadcasters, hadn't pitched since Friday.

But manager Rocco Baldelli called on May for his first real save opportunity of the season.  Rogers, it turned out, was unavailable with a stiff back; if anybody inquired postgame why Parker was passed over, the reply wasn't tweeted out.

Baldelli did address Matt Magill -- who retired all three men he faced and got credit for the win -- during the televised portion of his postgame scrum, praising the righty's stuff.

It was Magill's first good outing in some time. In his previous three appearances he allowed 10 runs while getting just four outs and inflated his ERA from 1.35 to 6.60.  Those are the kind of results that got Hildenberger shipped back to Triple A, and they had me surmising a few days ago that Magill was pitching himself off the roster.

Not so. I don't know where Magill ranks in Baldelli's bullpen hierarchy these days, and that hierarchy probably changes for no discernible reason anyway, but he got the ball in the eighth inning of a one two-run game Tuesday. He clearly remains in Baldelli's mix.

Transaction action

Before Friday's game the Twins filled the roster spot vacated by the demotion of Kohl Stewart by activating Matt Magill off the injured list.

This keeps the Twins at 13 pitchers, and I expect they will stay there for a while. As noted here a couple days ago, the Twins really need one of their minor four relivers -- currently Ryne Harper, Magill, Fernando Romero and Adalberto Mejia -- to step up into a more useful role than eating innings.

Three of them pitched Friday. Harper had a clean seventh, Romero had a messy but complete ninth, and Magill had a messier and incomplete eighth.

A move that didn't appear to have a specific necessity to it: Chase De Jong was outrighted off the 40-man roster. I don't see the point of this. It's not that De Jong is a good or even interesting pitcher, but taking him off the 40 slightly constricts the Twins roster flexibility, and there is no immediate gain for doing this now.

Trevor Hildenberger and a too-thin bullpen

Forty-some years ago whoever The Sporting News had as its correspondent for the then-California Angels referred constantly to that team's bullpen as "the Arson Squad." It's rare today to see a relief ace called a "fireman," but you get the idea.

Trevor Hildenberger today is more an arsonist than a fireman. Wednesday marked three straight appearances for him with a home run allowed. I won't pretend to know what the problem is; I know there's a problem.

Underlying the Hildenberger-specific problem that's leading to all the long balls is one of roster construction. The Twins have too many bullpen guys Paul Molitor doesn't want to use in game situations -- like the ninth inning of a tied game, which was the situation Wednesday when Hildenberger served up his most recent tater.

Fernando Rodney and Taylor Rogers, yes. Beyond that, with the trades of Zach Duke and Ryan Pressly ... the abyss.

Hildenberger is the favored arm of the rest of the pen partly because he has had some success, partly because he's (presumably) sound and partly because he's right handed.

Gabriel Moya is getting some work as a second lefty; essentially Rogers has moved into Duke's role as the favored lefty and Moya has moved into Rogers' old role. Fine.

Trevor May -- who did pitch Wednesday -- is in a rehab season after his Tommy John surgery. I assume Molitor wants to avoid using May on consecutive days.

Addison Reed is supposed to be a bullpen factor, but he has pitched just twice since coming off the disabled list, on July 31 and Aug 4. If he needs that much rest between outings, he probably shouldn't be active.

Matt Magill -- another guy who did pitch Wednesday -- has been pigeonholed as a long man for much of the season. Molitor has been reluctant to use him late in games, and nine of his first 25 appearances came with leads or deficits of more than four runs.

And Oliver Drake -- I haven't the slightest notion what he and his 7.31 ERA (compiled on a major league record five teams, including the Twins) is doing on this roster. I do know what he isn't doing, and that's pitching.

At least the overmatched Matt Belisle is off the active roster -- not DFA'd, but on the disabled list. This means we will probably get another dose of him next month at the latest. Oh joy.

Second-guessing the use of Zach Duke

The Twins lost Sunday 2-1. They didn't necessarily have to -- Ehire Adrianza did a sloppy job of running the bases and got thown out at the plate with the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth, after which Paul Molitor made the truly curious decision to have Zach Duke pitch against a series of right-handed hitters.

Chris Young (HBP on an 0-2 count), Martin Maldonado (sac bunt), Zack Cozart (RBI single). Game over. And had the game been alive after Cozart's hit, Mike Trout and Justin Upton were the next two hitters.

Duke has now pitched 13.1 innings this season, in which he's walked 10 and hit three. That's a lot of free baserunners. More to the point of second-guessing Paul Molitor's choice of Duke to pitch in a high-leverage situation against a string of right-handed bats, his OPS allowed is more than twice as high against righties as lefties.

Yeah, it's an extremely small sample size, but it is backed up with career numbers. Duke has always been better against lefties and since his move to the bullpen, his managers -- and there have been a lot of them for the veteran-- have treated him as a specialist. But Molitor has the notion that Duke has the stuff to thrive against righties, and he's gotten burned a couple of times that way.

To be sure, Molitor's preferred right-handed options -- Trevor Hildenberger and Addison Reed -- were probably unavailable. Hildenberger had pitched the previous three days, and Reed pitched two innings on Saturday.

And I don't blame Molitor for deciding to stay away from Phil Hughes. I don't know if Hughes is the bullpen is going to work, but we've seen nothing so far to make a manager eager to put a game in his hands.

But why not try Matt Magill? Magill has pitched nine innings since his call up and allowed one run. He's right-handed, and he has avoided so far the major failing of his previous major league experiences, walks. I would much rather pit Magill's stuff against the Cozart-Trout-Upton string of All-Star right-handed bats than Duke's.

The closest game Magill has pitched in was Friday's; he worked the eighth with the Twins down a pair and got the win when they scored three in the top of the ninth. Other than that, he's pitched with leads of more than four runs and deficits of three or more. He never even warmed up in Saturday's extra-inning affair; Hughes would have pitched the 12th had the Twins not taken the lead.

As with Hildenberger last year, it's understandable for Molitor to be cautious with him. But the "Greg McMichael Rule" -- if you get outs, they'll find a role for you -- suggests that Magill should soon get some more meaningful innings.

Had Adrianza scored on Robbie Grossman's double -- and he should have -- Molitor would have gone with Fernando Rodney in the bottom of the inning instead of Duke, and this rant never gets written. So Adrianza deserves the criticism he's getting elsewhere. But I firmly believe Duke shouldn't have been near the mound that inning.

Notes from the weekend

Nothing against Matt Magill, the most recent fringe guy to land, probably only temporarily, on the Twins roster, but when he came in to pitch Sunday I decided it was permission to turn off the game and take a nap.

Which meant I missed probably the highlight of the day for the Twins, since Magill got seven outs without allowing a run.

And -- surprise! -- he gets to stay on the roster. Tyler Duffey got sent down after the game, with another move to come today.

Agai, this is tinkering with the unimportant parts of the active roster. Duffey and Magill combined to allow one run in 5.1 innings, but Jose Berrios and Taylor Rogers had already allowed seven in 3.2.

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Luke Bard cleared Rule 5 waivers and was returned to the Minnesota Twins, which, as I figure things, means the Twins didn't lose anything through the Tyle Kinley Experiment. Indeed, as Bard is not on the 40-man roster, the Twins emerge slightly better off than had they protected Bard from the draft last November.

And if either Nick Burdi, on the disabled list with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is returned (probably not on the table until 2019) or the Miami Marlins pass on taking Kinley back (doubtful), all the better.