"At times Saturday, Francisco Liriano seemed fine, but then he'd walk a batter (which he did five times, twice on four pitches) or give up a homer (which he did twice) or even a hit.

At that point, the left-hander seemed controlled by the idea of controlling baserunners. He'd throw over to first once, maybe twice, drawing boos from the crowd. He became distracted, worked up, and the results showed it as he fell into the trap he so often has — throwing too many pitches and not enough of them for strikes.

During his 4 1/3 innings in Saturday's 6-1 loss to Toronto, Liriano gave up four runs on four hits. He threw 90 pitches, and just 44 of them were strikes.

"Early in the game, he was in control," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He was nice and smooth and he had a few good innings out there, but as soon as a couple things happened, then he started flying off the ball and overthrowing the ball. Everybody was telling him to calm down, but he's got to be able to do that himself. He's got to be able to calm down. You saw him bouncing 40-foot sliders and changeups. Joe Mauer took an absolute beating out there."

Liriano's velocity was down, at least according to the Rogers Centre radar gun, but he said his arm felt fine. His mechanics, however, were not."