Don't Let That Revolving Door Hit You in the Ass

So apparently, one of two things happened today: either Bill Smith read my blog and actually hung up a help wanted ad at the dome, or he finally cleaned off his desk and found the Post-It Note that said "get pitching help" that he wrote to himself weeks ago

Whatever happened, it's time to welcome some new pitchers to the Twins; they picked up Ron Mahay from the Royals and Jon Rauch from the D-backs. Welcome to Minnesota guys. Good luck, have fun, do well.

But this also means that the revolving door in the Twins pitching rotation just continues to spin and spin. I can't keep up.

So I did a little research, looking back at the Twins press releases over the season. I learned that of the 23 men who are or were Twins pitchers (including Mahay and Rauch), only three have been with the team the whole time without a stint on the DL or a visit to AAA. Your superstars are Blackburn, Nathan, and Guerrier.

Here's my list:

Liriano - opening day, dl 8/18
Slowey - opening day, dl 7/4
Blackburn - opening day
Perkins - opening day, dl 5/18, reinstated 6/16 (Crain), dl 8/12
Dickey - opening day, optioned 8/7
Nathan - opening day
Crain - opening day, dl 4/20, reinstated 5/3 (Morales), optioned 6/16, recalled 7/22 (Mulvey)
Guerrier - opening day
Ayala - opening day, released 6/22
Humber - opening day, optioned 4/17, recalled 8/18 (Liriano), optioned 8/28
Breslow - opening day, claimed 5/20
Duensing - opening day, optioned 4/15, recalled 7/2 (Henn)
Baker - dl, reinstated 4/15 (Duensing)
Mijares - called up 4/20 (Crain)
Morillo - acquired 4/17 (Humber), outrighted 5/1
Henn - called up 5/18 (Perkins), optioned 7/2
Swarzak - called up 5/20 (Breslow), optioned 6/13, recalled 7/4 (Slowey), optioned 8/21
Keppel - called up 6/22 (Ayala)
Mulvey - called up 7/15 (Morales), optioned 7/22
Pavano - acquired 8/7 (Dickey)
Manship - called up 8/12 (Perkins)
Gabino - called up 8/21 (Swarzak), optioned 8/28
Rauch - acquired 8/28 (Humber)
Mahay - acquired 8/29 (Gabino)

(The names in parenthesis are the guys whose roster spots were filled by the listed guy.)

Confusing, ain't it?

I'm a visual thinker, so I decided to create a picture chart to figure it out (blue arrows mean to the Twins, red means away from the Twins):




Nope, that's not any better, is it?

And there are rumors that more might be coming. Great.

Also, for the record, I've typed the word "Mahay" about 15 times today, and I haven't spelled it right on the first try yet. He just might have to be known as Mayhay in this blog.

[Edit: If you read this before about noon Saturday, you saw a grave error on my part; I forgot Scott Baker (I guess I should say that you didn't see it). In my defense, he started the season on the DL and the Twins never posted a press release announcing his activation. That's where I got my information, so I kind of forgot about him. Sorry, Scotty. I should have used the transaction list instead of the press releases. It's fixed now. The picture is fixed too.]