I am getting totally frustrated with the Twins not taking charge and stringing some wins together in their pursuit of the White Sox. The Sox are a pitching-poor team that plays horrible defense and makes bone-headed baserunning errors seemingly every other game.

Not that it directly impacts the Cubs if the Sox make the playoffs; I just don’t want to see it happen (not that you do, either).

JUST WIN!!! They’ll lose their share of their remaining games, believe me. Take advantage of it, for Christ’s sake!

but I assure you it’s nothing compared to the frustration felt by Twins fans. Now go back to enjoying the best Cubs team in recent memory.

Baker – Blackburn – Slowey is about the best we could do against Chicago. As much as I’d like to see Liriano there, it wouldn’t make sense to hold him out of the last game at Tampa Bay, as we’re going to need him there too.

That would also set us up for Liriano (4 days rest), Perkins (8) and Baker (4) to finish out the season against KC. I don’t know about you, but at this point, I’d trade a start by Perkins for an extra start by Baker any day of the week. It would also set us up for Slowey if we end up in a one game playoff, and Liriano to start a playoff series if we get that far…

That Gardenhire is playing coy with this. It doesn’t make sense to say right now that they are going to skip Perkins, as it might damage Perkins’ confidence going into his next start. It sounded like what Gardenhire was really talking about was that they can’t get Liriano into that series. But he’s mentioned the fact that they have an off day on Monday to play with.

I have to think that over the weekend it will come out that they looked at it again and they will skip Perkins, especially if he has another bad outing. They can always chalk it up to the high number of innings he’s thrown so far, Gardenhire has been harping on that with respect to Perkins recently.

It might also be a decent idea to insert Bonser into Perkins’ rotation spot the final week for the possible Saturday start against KC. Might make sense especially if Perkins bombs again.

Bonser’s handled pennant race pressure before in 2006 as a starter. It would only be one start against KC at home. His peripherals are actually better than Perkins’ anyway, and they could avoid KC seeing Liriano/Perkins back to back. Hopefully those games will be meaningful and this discussion won’t become moot. If Perkins is really out of gas I’d like to shut him down as a starter completely.

Tonight’s start against the Rays had to clinch it. If Perkins pitches against the Sox next week, I’ll eat my hat. They have to skip him.