Computer problems ruined my plans to hang out in the comments section throughout the day and the Twins dropped a pair of ugly games in Boston, so yesterday wasn't so much fun. I'm hoping that today goes a little bit better, because the Twins can't lose and I'm live blogging the various afternoon games over at NBCSports.com. I'll also be fielding questions just like an AG.com live chat, although "are you in bed right now?" and "how horrible are the Twins' announcers?" are slightly less likely to be answered.

UPDATE: Live blogging is now underway.

Philip Humber cleared waivers yesterday after being designated for assignment to make room on the roster for Juan Morillo and has been outrighted back to Triple-A. That means all 29 teams passed on the former No. 3 overall pick, allowing the Twins to retain Humber while removing him from the 40-man roster. He'll now try to get on track in Rochester's rotation, but obviously the rest of MLB agrees with me that he simply isn't very promising at this point.

Aside from Humber clearing waivers last night's rainout at Fenway Park leaves me without a whole lot of Twins news to discuss, so with a doubleheader against the Red Sox scheduled for today it seems like a good time to open up the comments section for everyone to chat during the games. I'll check in throughout the day to answer questions, respond to comments, and make sure you guys are behaving, so feel free to pull up a stool and hang out.

Jesse Crain complained of arm soreness after throwing 30 pitches Friday, took the weekend off, and was placed on the disabled list yesterday with what the Twins are calling right shoulder inflammation. Crain previously underwent shoulder surgery in 2007. Jose Mijares has been recalled from Triple-A to take Crain's place on the roster and may find himself thrust right back into a key late-inning role despite failing to make the team out of spring training due to weight gain and a 9.90 ERA.

Ron Gardenhire likes a 12-man pitching staff because in theory it divides up the relief workload seven ways, but it never quite works like that in practice. Instead, what usually happens is that Gardenhire continues to lean extremely hard on the most-trusted setup man because his usage of Joe Nathan in the closer role is so rigid, and the extra guy in the bullpen just leaves more room for the least-trusted relievers to collect dust.

Gardenhire has proven season after season that he'll likely run his primary setup man into the ground whether he has six relievers or nine relievers to choose from on a given night, and in this case having a 12-man pitching staff didn't keep him from using Crain seven times in the first 12 games. Pat Neshek, Matt Guerrier, and Juan Rincon couldn't handle that workload and neither can Crain, who made three more appearances and threw over twice as many pitches than Nathan through a dozen games.

When you save the best reliever on the team for 65 innings each season and increasingly burn through the middle relievers two batters at a time in the name of matchups, that leaves little choice but to trot out the primary setup man every other game for however long his arm can handle it. And because general manager Bill Smith failed to properly address the bullpen this winter those honors fell to Crain, who's now hoping that a couple weeks off can help him avoid the same fate as Guerrier (or Neshek).

Mijares is stepping into a pretty ugly bullpen situation, as Craig Breslow has basically been turned into a left-handed specialist, Guerrier and Luis Ayala continue to look cooked after struggling last year, R.A. Dickey's knuckleball shouldn't be trusted with runners on base or in key situations, and Juan Morillo's mid-90s Nuke LaLoosh act is reserved for mop-up duties. Smith handed Gardenhire a motley crew to work with and the results have been predictably poor, which is why overworking Crain was inevitable.

The good news is that Mijares rebounded from his disastrous spring with five scoreless appearances at Triple-A, posting a 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio while giving up just two hits over 6.1 innings. He'll no doubt get all the high-leverage work his 24-year-old arm can take and perhaps Gardenhire will actually have a pair of setup men he trusts once Crain returns. If instead Mijares struggles, the Twins may have no choice but to see what Robert Delaney and Anthony Slama can do with a call-up from Double-A.

Talk of a "mid-90s fastball" gets tossed around a lot in describing hard-throwing pitchers, but thanks to Fan Graphs and Pitch-F/X we know that there are very few guys who consistently work at that velocity. In fact, none of the 99 pitchers who logged at least 150 innings last season had an average fastball that cracked 95 miles per hour. Even lowering the cutoff to 50 innings so that relievers are included results in just 11 of 316 qualified pitchers averaging at least 95 miles per hour with their fastball in 2008.

Most big-league pitchers work at 88-92 mph, an excellent fastball is 93-94, and a handful of relievers in each league consistently crack 95. All of which is a long way of saying that "mid-90s fastball" likely gets used too often when describing guys who occasionally reach 94-95 while actually working at 92 or 93. Juan Morillo is among the rare pitchers for whom "mid-90s fastball" is not only an accurate description but perhaps even a bit of an understatement.

Prior to being claimed off waivers by the Twins this weekend Morillo had thrown 135 fastballs in the big leagues, all as a member of the Rockies, and they averaged 96.5 mph. Morillo made his Twins debut Saturday night, working the final inning of a 9-2 victory over the Angels, and threw 13 pitches. One was an 88-mph slider that struck out Mike Napoli and the other 12 were fastballs clocked by Pitch-F/X at 95, 96, 97, 97, 97, 97, 98, 97, 96, 97, 97, and 97 mph.

Save for perhaps a healthy Joel Zumaya he may throw consistently harder than any pitcher in baseball and not surprisingly he racked up 126 strikeouts over 126 innings between Double-A and Triple-A after becoming a full-time reliever in 2007. So why was this strikeout machine with a rare legitimate mid-90s fastball available for absolutely nothing on waivers? Because he can't throw the ball over the plate. He walked 87 batters in those 126 innings, including an astounding 7.9 walks per nine innings at Triple-A.

For the better part of a decade the Twins have built an organization full of strike-throwing machines with high-80s or low-90s fastballs and strong off-speed pitches, but Morillo is as far from fitting that mold as it gets. He's shown no ability to command what is an overpowering fastball and his "off-speed pitches" consist of a little-used changeup and a slider that could pass for a fastball. And that's exactly why the Twins were smart to essentially trade Philip Humber (who was designated for assignment) for Morillo.

Since coming over in the Johan Santana trade many Twins fans have simply assumed that Humber is a good prospect because he was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2004 draft after a brilliant college career and once received a ton of hype coming up through the Mets system. However, his stuff hasn't been the same since undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery in July of 2005 and little in Humber's post-surgery performance suggests that he's capable of becoming more than a fifth starter or long reliever.

Humber certainly still has some value and keeping him around to soak up low-leverage relief innings and perhaps make a spot start or two would have been just fine, but the payoff is minimal given that he's already 26 years old and the Twins develop pitchers in such a way that they will rarely be lacking in back-of-the-rotation starters or long relievers. Morillo won't even have Humber's limited application if he can't find the plate, but simply going from "awful" to "bad" control would give him much more upside.

Whether pitching coach Rick Anderson can work his magic on Morillo remains to be seen and likely qualifies as improbable, but he's certainly in the right place when it comes to throwing strikes and the downside for the Twins is minimal as long they keep him a low-leverage role. If they can get Morillo to harness his extraordinary fastball they will have stumbled upon a late-inning relief option unlike nearly every other pitcher in the system. And if not, they can throw a rock and hit another guy like Humber.