Why is Liriano still in minors? His agent wants an answer

On the same day the Philadelphia Phillies bolstered their rotation for the pennant race by trading for Joe Blanton, a surprise contender in the AL is under fire for keeping a valuable arm in the minors.

Francisco Liriano, an All-Star pick in 2006 when he went 12-3 with a 2.16 ERA, is coming back from Tommy John ligament transplant surgery. And after struggling in April, he was sent to the minors to work on his mechanics.

At Triple-A Rochester, he's 7-0 with a 2.73 ERA in his past nine starts. And the lefty is still waiting for the call to come back to the big club. Liriano's agent, Greg Genske, asked the players' union to investigate why Liriano isn't back in the majors, because to the agent it smells like the Twins are trying to trim Liriano's service time in the majors, which would delay him becoming a free agent by a year.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire doesn't like that characterization.

"I just back into town and I hear all this stuff, and [ESPN writer/commentator] Buster Olney is making my team up now and [Genske] wants to tell me who is going to pitch here," Gardenhire told MLB.com. "No one is going to tell us who to put on our team and no one on ESPN is going to tell us who should pitch for my team. They haven't been here all year. If they had been down there and seen the guy pitch, and then started talking, that's one thing. But to read stats, that's another thing. I recommend they go down there and watch him pitch, come back with a good report for me and walk into my office."

Minnesota has a rotation of Livan Hernandez, Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins and Nick Blackburn, and all are pitching reasonably well. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.