The Twins have been shuffling things around a bit the past few days as they deal with injuries and struggling players. Here's a rundown of what's happened.

On Friday the Twins activated Nick Punto from the DL and optioned Alexi Casilla to AAA to make room. It was the second time this season that Casilla has been demoted.

On Saturday the Twins optioned Anthony Swarzak to AAA right after his 7 shutout innings against the Cubs. The Twins recalled catcher Jose Morales to take his place. With several hitters on the DL and the fact that Joe Mauer is often being used as DH on his offdays, Ron Gardenhire wanted to have a 3rd catcher. The move brought the Twins' pitchers down to just 11. Morales has not played in either of the 2 games since being recalled.

Yesterday the Twins activated Glen Perkins from the DL just in time for his start against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jesse Crain was optioned to AAA Rochester. Crain has struggled all season and gave up the Cubs' winning run in the 9th inning on Sunday.

The Twins also placed Denard Span, who has been out since leaving the game on June 9th with dizziness, on the Disabled list. Jason Pridie, who was the 3rd piece of the trade that acquired Delmon Young and Brendan Harris, was recalled from Rochester to fill the spot. Denard Span was diagnosed with Vestibular neuritis of the right ear, and was prescribed medication to treat the virus. It was thought that he'd be ready to play by the weekend, but that was just too long to wait, so the team decided to place him on the DL which will leave him out until June 24th.

Michael Cuddyer and Joe Crede both returned to the lineup on Tuesday night after missing games with minor injuries. They combined for 4 hits and made a clear difference in the offenses ability to produce runs.

Pirates Game

The Twins beat the Pirates handily in the opening game of the series. Glen Perkins pitched 6 good innings in his comeback start and the Twins put 8 runs on the board.

Joe Mauer was 4-4 in the game to bring his batting average up to .429. He's still about 20 plate appearances short of qualifying for the AL batting title, but if you added 20 plate appearances to his total and assumed they were all outs, he'd still be batting .381--good enough for the league lead.