All things being almost equal, I think it’s time to bring up Francisco Liriano and give him a try. Tonight, he pitched seven innings against Toledo — one of the better teams in the International League — and shut down the Hens for seven innings on two hits and two walks over seven innings. That brought his Rochester record to 9-2, 3.13, including one earned run in his last 35 innings.

That’s a 0.26 ERA.

Right now is the time to move one of the young starters to long relief and see what Liriano can do. Having a second lefty in the rotation trumps the current arrangement, and the pitcher who gets demoted (Slowey or Blackburn) needs to see this as a chance for the Twins to make a serious run at the division — in the same way that a trade for a right-handed bat is going to cost the current right-handers some playing time.

Besides, there’s probably going to be a key game or two when the Twins are going to need a spot starter, even if all arms stay healthy. (Think road rainouts and the potential for a doubleheader or two.)

It doesn’t make sense to keep Brian Bass in Minnesota and Liriano in Rochester. At this point, it simply doesn’t.

The best scenario: Monday night at the Metrodome against the White Sox. Liriano takes Slowey’s spot in the rotation for the opener of the big four-game series. The White Sox pretty much chewed through the Twins rotation last month, so let’s give ‘em a different look and see what happens.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.