After further review — and a bit o' research — I have to say that my previous posting was overly hasty.

A quick check of pitch counts on ESPN.com shows that Perkins has not been particularly restricted in outing length. He's topped 100 pitches in three of his 10 starts to date.

And I fear that I fell into the over-simplistic trap Bert Blyleven lives in, of assuming that the only factor involved in pulling an effective pitcher is pitch counts. There is good reason to believe that there are other guidelines the Twins use as well — guidelines that tend to intersect with pitch counts at about 100 pitches. One of those is batters faced. Twins pitchers generally go through the opposing lineup about three times — 27 hitters. Perkins was pulled Monday after batter no. 27. He was pulled with a series of right-handed hitters coming up. He was pulled having spent a good part of the early innings working out of the stretch. He was pulled with the bullpen's set-up men rested. It was the right move. It just didn't work.

Even the June 9 quick hook, against the White Sox, is a bit more explicable viewed through that prism, although I remain convinced that he should have gotten a longer leash that day, if only because the bullpen was exhausted. On that day he was pulled after just 23 batters and 93 pitches.

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