The writing was on the wall. Harris has cleared waivers and will report to Rochester.
Over the last two series the Twins have tried Michael Cuddyer at third base under the guise of getting his bat into the lineup. To be fair, that was probably true. But it also meant they were playing a man out of position. Instead of playing Brendan Harris, a guy who has logged 752 innings at third base for the Twins over the past three seasons (or shifting Punto over and playing Harris at short), the Twins went to a player who hadn't played there in five years. Yeah, he'd fallen that far.
Harris was having a terrible season. There was no reason to expect this kind of a performance, but as opportunities continued to present themselves and he continued to get playing time, he was never able to even get close to the hitter he'd been since arriving in Minnesota. Yes, his numbers were in decline (.777 OPS in Tampa in '07, .721 in '08 and .672 in '09), but there was no way .157/.233/.213 was even on the horizon.
But that's baseball. Things happen.
And of course, this is absolutely the right move. Harris was essentially just taking up a roster spot, appearing in just eight games so far this month (and none since Saturday and picking up just two plate appearances in the last 11 days).
Taking Harris' place will be Jason Repko who, at 29, has been a bit of a journeyman without going too much of anywhere. He appeared in 129 games for the Dodgers in 2005 as a 24-year old, but hit just .221/.281/.384. Since then he's bounced back and forth between the majors and the minors, before signing with the Twins this spring as a minor league free agent.
Repko is a .289/.357/.461 hitter in over 1600 triple-A plate appearances. He's also a center fielder, which means the Twins will have a more viable option off the bench if they ever decide to give Denard another day off.
With interleague play coming to and end just around the corner, Danny Valencia playing pretty well, J.J. Hardy hopefully on his way back (at some point, right?) and Alexi Casilla also on the mend, I'm not sure we'll see Harris in a Twins uniform again. Barring a significant injury, of course.
There are a number of steps the Twins needed to take to get better as a unit, and this was one of them.