Rotation roundabout

A road trip that began with such promise -- a sweep in Cleveland and a return to first place -- collapsed in Boston and Kansas City. The Twins end the first half 41-40 and three games out, and it feels worse.

I've been obsessing here with the bullpen depth, but the biggest immediate problem right now might be the starting pitching:

#mntwins rotation has produced one quality start in past 12 chances. Ervin at CLE (6/25)

ERA in that span: 5.27.

Innings per start: 4.56.

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) July 2, 2017

On Sunday Hector Santiago was pulled after 58 pitches, just 10 outs and almost no velocity; he grumbled postgame about the quick hook, but it's difficult to criticize Paul Molitor for pulling him. Phil Hughes then entered (his second bullpen outing), and he got five outs while allowing six hits, which is a horrid batting average allowed.

Santiago's ERA is 5.63, and that may overstate his effectiveness. Hughes' ERA is even worse (5.72) and the hope that he can at least give the bullpen a boost has yet to be supported. We have not seen from him the usual velocity surge that accompanies moves to the bullpen.

Felix Jorge allowed three runs in five innings in his spot start in Saturday's doubleheader, and that mediocre line is being lauded. I'll be the Debby Downer on this: He's not an answer to the rotation woes. But then, I don't know who is.

When to pitch Duensing

The tragic number remains 2. The White Sox did their part for the Twins — Jake Peavy was brilliant, and Edwin Jackson continues to slide — and the Twins managed to survive some sloppy defense and middle relief work.

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Over at ESPN.com, Rob Neyer is first-guessing Jim Leyland's plan to start Alfredo Figaro today against the White Sox.

Neyer is quite willing to concede that starting 20-year-old Rick Porcello on short rest is not a wise option. His suggestion: Start Justin Verlander on short rest and follow, if needed, with Porcello on Sunday.

I suspect that the Tigers ruled that out on the basis that they want Porcello to have at least a full week off after his 111-pitch outing Tuesday against the Twins.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the Twins options with their starting pitchers.

Nick Blackburn starts today on three days rest. Brian Duensing is penciled in for Sunday.

There are three possible situations for Sunday.

A) The Tigers have clinched.
B) The Tigers remain one game ahead.
C) The Twins and Tigers are tied.

If it's scenario A, Sunday's starter will be of interest only for statistical purposes.

Under B or C, however, the Twins might be inclined to use Carl Pavano on short rest — definitely so if Duensing is used in relief today, which is a possibility considering how hard Ron Gardenhire used the bullpen the past few days. (Pavano pitched less than five innings on Wednesday, Scott Baker went just five on Thursday, and Jeff Manship was pulled Friday with one out in the sixth, so the bullpen has had to get 36 outs the last three days.)

Here's a question: Who would you rather pitch in a one-game playoff Tuesday: Pavano or Baker? Baker's the better pitcher, but ... Baker has four starts this year against Detroit; he's 1-1 with a 6.75 ERA, 20 innings; over three years, 2-3 (10 starts), 4.17 in 62 2/3 innings. Pavano is 4-1, 3.00 this year against the Tigers.

So, two choices: Duensing on regular rest on Sunday, with Pavano or Baker available to start a Tuesday play-in game, or Pavano on short rest on Sunday and Baker — who doesn't match up as well against the Tigers — for the play-in game.

Because, face it — if Gardenhire is unwilling to start Duensing against the Royals in a crucial game, he's not going to call on the rookie for the play-in start either.

What next for Liriano?

The tragic number is six headed into the Motown Showdown, and it's pretty clear what Minnesota needs out of that four-game series: A sweep.

If the Tigers win three (or four) of the four games, they clinch. A 2-2 split leaves the Twins two games out with three to play — and one of those three will be against Zach Grienke. Even a 3-1 series win only pulls the Twins into a tie with Detroit.

At least the Twins won't have to deploy their fifth starter in that series. Francisco Liriano got the call Sunday and displayed the same basic problem he displayed for most of the season: No command of the fastball.

Five outs, four baserunners, three runs — a three-run homer to Yunisesky Betancourt, which might be excusable if the man could actually hit — and just 24 strikes in his 45 pitches.

A quick hook, and deservedly so.

Not that Jeff Manship was a while lot better in his long-relief outing at throwing strikes — 66 pitches, 32 of them balls. But Manship at least got 11 outs and only allowed one run.

It ws, in fact, a very un-Twins like day on the hill; Bobby Keppel threw nine balls in his 19 pitches. Of the four guys who pitched Sunday for Minnesota, only Jesse Crain pounded the strike zone.

Assuming that Friday's game — the next, and final, time this spot in the rotation cycles around — matters, who should Ron Gardenhire call on?

He can't, right now, have any faith in either Liriano or Manship. But they remain the best options; Gardy sure isn't giving another start to Armando Gabino. Pick one, pull him fast, and make it a bullpen game.

My choice would be Manship. But I'm not in the clubhouse, and I'm not looking in their eyes to see who's afraid to fail. One danger is putting an "unready" prospect in a key game is the long-term damage a bad game can do to his psyche.

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Meanwhile, out in Chicago the White Sox

a) beat the Tigers and

b) still didn't get to watch football.

Taking the fifth

La Velle Neal suggests in the game story from Tuesday that Jeff Manship may be bounced from the rotation before Sunday's start against Kansas City and Zach Grienke.

It could be Francisco Liriano (right). Or Armando Gabino. For that matter, the Twins might still be able to pluck somebody off waivers and toss him into the fray. He wouldn't be eligible for the playoffs, but he might help get there.

Certainly the in-house options right now aren't particularly impressive. Whoever takes the ball for the first pitch on Sunday isn't a good bet to be around for the fifth inning, much less the seventh.

Away back in 1987, Tom Kelly finagled his "rotation" through September — Bert Blyleven and Frank Viola in regular rotation, and he pieced things together in between. Steve Carlton got three starts in the last five weeks or so — the washed-up future Hall of Famer was pitted against Teddy Higuera, Jack Morris and Bret Saberhagen, arguably the three best pitchers in the American League that season. TK's thinking: The Twins weren't likely to score a lot of runs in those games, so he'd see if Lefty had one more big game left — and if not, he wasn't wasting a bullet.

But TK was playing with a lead. Ron Gardenhire's playing catch-up. He can't afford to concede Sunday's game.

Neal dismisses immediately the notion of a four-man rotation for the last two weeks of the season. It would be an un-Twins-like thing to do; this organization believes strongly in protecting its pitchers. Plus, Carl Pavano is not exactly Iron Man McGinnity; there's a limit to how far he can be pushed.

But the prospect of two bullpen starts against Grienke in the last eight days of the season is daunting. Gardenhire has to find the idea of shortening his rotation for the last 11 games tempting.

Sunday morning comin' down

Tragic number entering Sunday: 16. Twins lose, Tigers lose. Stop me if you've heard this before.

The Twins entered Saturday 12th in the 14-team American league in starter's ERA (4.84); 11th in innings pitched by starters; and 10th in strikeouts. Decidedly below average.

One strong point: They were (and still are) first in fewest walks allowed.

So how'd they lose Saturday? The starter (Jeff Manship, right) walked the first two batters in the fifth inning; they both came around to score.

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Poll results: One the question of who should be in the Twins rotation next season, we had 15 respondents. Eight (53 percent) said Brian Duensing; five (33 percent) said Francisco Liriano; one each (6 percent) said Carl Pavano and Glen Perkins; zero opted for Manship, Anthony Swarzak or none of the above.

I have to figure the Perkins vote came from a diehard Minnesota chauvinist, bound to take the Stillwater native against the out-of-staters. Either that or a White Sox fan.

New poll up.

The confidence game

Tragic number remains at 19; Kansas City beat the Tigers again Wednesday, which has to be at least as unlikely as the Twins beating Roy Halladay.

Broadcaster line of the night: Bert Blyleven, talking about the just-reactivated Francisco Liriano: Sometimes, confidence is all in the mind. Really? It's not located in the big toe? It's just that kind of insight that gets Bert the big bucks.

Baseball players talk a lot about confidence; I suspect there are more quotes from baseball floating around about confidence than there are from football, basketball and hockey put together. Successful players frequently credit their confidence rather than their talent.

I've always figured it was a chicken-and-the-egg thing: Justin Morneau (above) has been slumping for a while, but he hit a homer Wednesday to put the Twins ahead for good. Is he a good hitter because he's confident he can hit, or is he confident he can hit because he's a good hitter? Which one led to Wednesday's home run off Halladay? Can you really split them apart?

It would be understandable if Liriano's confidence is shattered; he's three years removed from his dominating 2006 self, and since then he's had major arm surgery and a revamping of his pitching motion. He doesn't have the velocity he once did. So on what does he base the belief that he's a major league pitcher?

Confidence without the talent (and the ability to use it) is just bravado. It's J.D. Durbin dubbing himself the Real Deal after his first minor league inning. A good arm, but he washed out.

It isn't confidence Liriano needs to find this month in the bullpen; it's something realistic on which to base that belief.

The player to be named is named Mulvey

Kevin Mulvey, one of the pitchers the twins got in Johan Santana trade, is headed to Arizona as part of the Jon Rauch trade.

Judging from the above statement from the Twins, there's cash flowing in both directions as well, but that's probably a technicality. The trade was Rauch for Mulvey, and I'm fine with that. Happier with that than I was with Carl Pavano for Yohan Pino, because Rauch will be around next season.

Mulvey hadn't developed the way I, and I assume the Twins, expected he would when they got him. Here are his pro ball numbers. Note the slight regression while repeating Triple A this year. Almost exactly the same innings, but more walks, fewer strikeouts and a worse ERA. He certainly didn't improve.

Which is why it's Jeff Manship (above) getting the start today against the White Sox. It's not that the Twins expect Manship to be great; by all accounts, they think he's up too soon. But the Twins clearly had come to regard him as a better option than Mulvey.

The trade of Mulvey, coupled with the fact that Phil Humber has been dropped from the 40-man roster twice this season, breaks the direct take from the Santana trade down to Carlos Gomez and Deolis Guerra, although the Twins now have Rauch as a spinoff. Guerra has at least had a decent bounce-back season after a rough 2008 — note the vastly improved walk and strikeout rates.

No Penny, no Harden, no nothing

After all that speculation, the Twins didn't make a deal for Rich Harden and didn't put in a claim on Brad Penny, who became a free agent and is almost certainly headed to the easier National League.

This leaves the Twins with a rotation of Scott Baker (good), Carl Pavano (less good), Nick Blackburn (mediocre), Brian Duensing (effective beyond reason so far) and a grab bag of minor leaguers, bullpen arms and perhaps injury returnees. Last week the grab bag meant Armando Gabino; on Tuesday, it means Jeff Manship. Next week, who knows?

And you know what? I'm not broken hearted over this. Penny has a 5.61 ERA with the Red Sox for a reason, and it follows a 6.28 ERA last year for the Dodgers. He may not be any real improvement over Gabino or Manship.

Harden's a much better pitcher, but the question with him isn't if he'll get hurt, it's when. He's had seven DL stints since 2005. A pitcher acquired now figures to make six regular season starts, max; Harden, even assuming he makes all six starts, would hardly have meant six guaranteed wins, any more than the grab bag approach means six guaranteed losses. (The Twins did, after all, win Gabino's one start.)

We don't know exactly what the Cubs wanted for Harden, but it was always assumed to be a steep asking price, and thus always seemed a long shot to happen. The Twins at this moment — after the Tigers' Monday loss, before the start of the Twins-White Sox game — are four games out. That's a big margin to overcome on the basis of one rotation slot's six starts. Had the Twins won a couple more of those eminently winnable games since the All-Star break, giving up key prospects for Harden trade have been justifiable.

If the Twins are going to make up those four games on the Tigers, they're going to need somebody to step up the way Baker and Duensing have. Tonight is Blackburn's next chance to start being that somebody.

Collecting B(r)ad Penny

I don't know which is the more daunting:

* The prospect of facing the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs with a rotation of Scott Baker, Carl Pavano, Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing; or

* The projected starters for Minnesota in next week's series against the Chicago White Sox: TBA on Monday, Blackburn on Tuesday, Duensing on Wednesday.

As the postseason roster deadline draws steadily nearer — a player has to be on the 40-man roster before Sept. 1 to be eligible — the Twins are said to be scrambling for pitching help.

And the machinations are fascinating. Brad Penny — shown above — no longer fits on the Red Sox roster, and is on release waivers. The Twins appear to be in prime position to claim him, and the 5.61 ERA doesn't accurately reflect how well he's pitched. His walk to strikeout ratio is fine, the strikeout rate is good enough. He's no star, but he can help.

ESPN's report is focused on National League teams, with Buster Olney suggesting that there will be little interest in assuming the remainder of Penny's contract. It would probably cost the Twins about $200,000 per start to claim Penny, but the general consensus is that Penny's more interested in returning to the easier National league, so if the Twins want him, they'll have to pay.

Still, there's a notion that Penny assured the Red Sox he won't sign with an AL contender, and despite Joe Christensen's suggestion (the first link) that Penny won't want to walk away from his current deal, there's no guarantee he'll accept an AL waiver claim.

Another rumor concerns the Twins and Rich Harden of the Chicago Cubs. A Harden deal will be tougher to pull off for two reasons:

1) National League teams have priority on him in trade waivers, and Harden is said to have been claimed by at least one NL club. In which case, the Twins can't get him, period.

2) Harden is a Type A free agent-to-be, meaning that the Cubs might be unwilling to move him for less than the equivalent of the draft picks they could get if he signs elsewhere this winter. (It's also possible the Cubs just want to shed the remainder of his salary; they are, after all, in bankruptcy court, even if that's largely a formality to clear the decks for the pending franchise sale.)

My guesses: If Harden goes anywhere, it will be to the Colorado Rockies. And the Twins will ante up for Penny. But by the time we know on the last, the White Sox series will be under way.