Minnesota Twins: Two Prospects Appear in Rochester

Francisco Liriano goes again today in Rochester, and while I doubt that another start like his last (6IP, 1ER, 6H, 1BB, 7K) would merit him a call up, it seems like we're getting close to a point where every start could be the one that proves to Gardy and Billy the Kid that he's ready to go.

As much as I hope Livan would be the odd man out, I don't think he will be, which prompts the question: Who gets knocked out of the rotation? Hernandez and Baker seem to have their spots more or less set. Which leaves the time with their compliment of young starters to shuffle as they see fit.

Perkins, Slowey and Blackburn all seem perfectly capable of locking in their rotation spot, but none of them have been able to string together 2-3 great starts like the Twins need them to.

None of them is clearly set in the rotation, but no one is moving out either, so it will be a hard call for the front office on who gets sent to the pen or to AAA.

The situation is enough to make you wonder, is the front office waiting for Liriano to be ready, or for someone in the rotation to falter enough to merit their demotion?

Denard Span was activated yesterday, but apparently isn't 100% yet and didn't play in last night's loss.

Span's injury came at the worst possible time for him. When he went down, I was looking for him to get called back up, but now that Young is hitting better, Kubel looks MUCH better than he had looked previously and Cuddyer is getting back on his feet, albeit slowly, the OF looks set for a while.

I'll be interested to see if Span can get back to the way he was playing before the injury or if his hot streak will be derailed by his time off. In either case, he'll probably stay in AAA for the next month or so at least, baring injury to Cuddy or Gomez.