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.

Relief rotation

The Monday print column addressed the Twins bullpen woes and the seemingly contradictory notion that a seven-man bullpen is too thin.

What it didn't address — this week anyway — is how bullpen management has evolved. Obviously, the era of 12-man pitching staff is relatively new; I remember (being a hopelessly old guy) when Tony LaRussa with Oakland opted to carry an 11th pitcher ... I think it was 1989. I thought it ridiculously overstaffed. Now nobody has as few as 11 pitchers. I blame LaRussa.

Anyway, it is my recollection that in 1987 Tom Kelly had a set-up man rotation. Jeff Reardon closed, and the three right-handers — Keith Atherton, Juan Berenguer and George Frazier, alphabetically — rotated.

Checking this recollection on Retrosheet.org: Indeed, it wasn't until April 22 — the 15th game of the season — that Kelly used two of those guys in the same game, and another week before they doubled up for the second time. The rotation was Frazier, Atherton, Berenguer. They generally worked multiple innings and then got a couple games off. Frazier went two innings on Opening Day (got the win in extra innings); Atherton worked two innings the second day (set up Reardon for the save); Berenguer pitched three innings the next day. And so it went.

TK did have Joe Klink, a rookie lefty, in his pen to open the season, and Klink served as a LOOGY — Left-handed One-Out GuY — of sorts.

And that was the April bullpen: Reardon, Berenguer, Atherton, Frazier, Klink. Five starting pitchers (Bert Blyleven, Frank Viola, Mark Portugal, Mike Smithson and Les Straker, in that order) and five relievers. Ten man staff.

That's the old school.

The bullpen rotation eventually deteriorated. Berenguer, the most effective of the trio, went into the starting rotation for a brief while (six starts), and by season's end Kelly had lost confidence in Frazier; Frazier was not used in key situations in the playoffs or World Series, and 1987 was his last season.

But even in September, Kelly was frequently picking one reliever a day to get from the starter to Reardon.