Perkins to disabled list; Hughes promoted

Glen Perkins was so sore after Saturday's game that he had to move carefully as he reached down to pull a towel off the chair by his stall.

This game can be unexpectedly brutal sometimes, and a batch of poor plays and pitches led to the Twins blowing a three-run lead and losing 9-6 to the Diamondbacks at Chase Field. The big blow for Diamondbacks was Kelly Johnson's grand slam off of Matt Capps in the eighth.

The big blow for the Twins was that Perkins is headed to the 15-day disabled list with a strained right oblique muscle suffered while he gave up a single to D-Backs catcher Miguel Montero.

UPDATE: The Twins have announced that lefthander Dusty Hughes has been called up to replace Perkins, Hughes gave up three earned runs in 5.1 innings since being sent to Class AAA Rochester on May 6. He opened the season with the Twins and had a 10.13 ERA in 12 games.

``The disappointing thing is that our kid got hurt," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.``One of our best relievers. And it is not going to be one of those short things, it is going to be awhile. And that is disappointing because our bullpen had taken a little shape.

``You lose ballgames. It is going to happen every once in awhile (but) it has happened too many times already this year. But a kid to an injury like that is huge to our bullpen."
Perkins said he felt something on his second to last warmup pitch, but not the last pitch.

``Each pitch to Montero just kinda got worse and worse and worse," he said. ``Tried to get a ground ball and he hit just past them. After that,I felt I couldn't stay out there."

So he tried to suck it up.

``It feels like a knife has been stuck in me," he said.

The Twins led 6-3 after the top of the eighth before Arizona scored six runs. Perkins being injured was just part of the Twins problems.

Delmon Young should have caught Juan Miranda's drive in the eighth that scored two runs. He might have been spooked by the wall and pulled his arm in.

``Should be no doubles," Gardenhire said. ``He made an effort. He was there to catch it. He had his glove out. He just didn't reach up and catch it. It happens."

``This is the big leagues," Gardenhire said. ``You have to follow the ball. You can't attack, attack, attack and go flying Wallenda there." Too bad for Valencia, who was 3-for-4 at the plate with his second homer in two days and 3 RBI.

You can go back to earlier in the game, when Scott Baker needed 102 pitches to get through five innings and came out in the sixth after back-to-back doubles. If that bullpen door could have stayed closed another inning.

We'll see how the bullpen adjusts to losing Perkins.

``This is the last thing we needed," Perkins said.