Boyer joins Hughes on disabled list for Twins

Phil Hughes will miss his annual Yankee Stadium visit next week, and he will have company in the Twin Cities: Blaine Boyer. The veteran reliever went on the disabled list Friday because of elbow inflammation, one day after Hughes was sidelined by back pain, and the two right-handers will stay home from New York and Baltimore next week to recover from their injuries.

Boyer's elbow flared up a couple of days ago, manager Paul Molitor said, and the team sent him for a magnetic resonance imaging test. The MRI found no structural damage, but just as they did with starter Tommy Milone two weeks ago, the Twins chose to take no chances.

"He said he maybe wanted to try to pitch through it," Molitor said of Boyer, who has a 2.98 ERA in 51 appearances this season. "You don't want to go out and pitch if you're having tenderness in that area, especially with the ligament that comes together at the attachment point. So we'll back him off."

The Twins recalled Michael Tonkin from Class AAA Rochester to replace Boyer, the fourth time the 26-year-old righthander has been summoned this year. He is on a particularly hot streak this time, having given up only one run since June 30, holding opponents to a .127 batting average, and posting an ERA of 0.42 in 21⅓ innings over that span. He has a 1.29 ERA at Rochester this year, along with 12 saves.

But Tonkin's ERA is 5.73 in the major leagues this year, and he gave up two run-scoring hits when he pitched in the sixth inning against Cleveland on Friday.

"It's not like Michael is a young kid anymore. He's not old, by any means, but he's been here enough to know what he has to do to get good results," Molitor said. "We've seen glimpses."

Duffey, Take 2

Tyler Duffey figures things will be different Saturday for his second big-league start. For one thing, Target Field isn't completely foreign to him; he has taken a tour.

The rookie happened upon a tour when he arrived last January for TwinsFest, so he followed along and got a behind-the-scenes look at the Twins clubhouse, batting cages and offices. Now he will find out first-hand about the pitcher's mound, and he is confident it will go better than his Aug. 5 debut in Toronto.

"I didn't pitch like I know how to pitch. I tried to do something else," he said of that two-inning, six-run outing vs. the Blue Jays. He learned a valuable lesson, too. "Don't try to throw 100 [miles per hour] when you don't throw 100. That's the best way to put it — you can't blow fastballs by guys if you don't throw hard."

He rebounded from that start by giving up one hit over six innings for Rochester against Charlotte.

"You've got to have a short memory. I was a reliever in college [at Rice], so I threw three times a weekend in college," he said. "If you weren't good on Friday, you still had to pitch Saturday. So I know how to dump it and move on."

Etc.

• Jose Berrios, the Twins' top pitching prospect, no-hit Scranton/Wilkes Barre for six innings Friday in Rochester, N.Y., but he couldn't get an out in the seventh. Rob Refsnyder led off with a home run to spoil the no-hitter, and Berrios then gave up four singles, another home run and hit a batter — he committed an error on a pickoff throw, too — before being removed.

• Brian Dozier was out of the lineup for only the third time this season, with Molitor taking the occasion of Corey Kluber pitching — Dozier is 3-for-28 against last year's Cy Young winner — to provide some rest. "He fought it, as expected," Molitor said.