CLEVELAND -- A short bench won't be a concern for Twins manager Ron Gardenhire during his club's series against the Brewers this weekend.

With the club having parted ways with Juan Rincon, infielder Brian Buscher will be called up from Triple-A Rochester in time for Friday's game in Milwaukee. And the start of Interleague Play means that the club's designated hitter will also be on the bench, increasing the Twins' number of reserve position players from three to five.

Gardenhire said that Buscher, who has batted .319 with 12 doubles and eight home runs in 53 games for the Red Wings this season, will be an option at third base as well as a potential pinch-hitter.

Buscher has been battling patellar tendinitis recently, but the infielder saw the doctor and everything was declared structurally sound in his knee.

"It's just a little soreness from getting hit [by pitches]," Gardenhire said. "There is a little inflammation in there, but he's fine to play."

But while a limited bench is no longer a concern for the big league club, that's exactly what Rochester had to deal with as a result of Buscher's callup. The Red Wings were without one player on the bench on Thursday night and were even forced to have their pitcher bat in the designated hitter spot.

Due to an influx of injuries for the Twins at both the Major League level and in the Minors, the rosters at both Double-A New Britain and Triple-A Rochester have been thin recently.

The expectation is that player moves will be coming for both clubs, especially now that Class A Fort Myers has already clinched the first half title for the West Division of the Florida State League.

One person who is watching with interest as to which players will be moved is Gardenhire himself. He mentioned a few prospects that he would like to see get called up to the Triple-A level, hoping to discover whether they can perform there and possibly help his club in the near future.

But for now, he seems pleased just to be getting back to having more bench players of his own and seeing what they can do. The hope is that following another difficult blowout loss in Cleveland on Thursday night -- bringing the team's record on the road trip to 1-6 with just three games remaining -- the team can try to salvage some more wins. But that could be a difficult task facing a Brewers team that is 12-4 since May 26.

"We have to go to Milwaukee, play some National League rules and just try to get to an off-day that we have Monday," Gardenhire said. "We've just got to keep playing, that's all you can do."

Interleague record: 107-88 overall, 1-2 in 2008

2008 Interleague Schedule
• May 16 at Rockies: Won, 4-2
• May 17 at Rockies: Lost, 3-2
• May 18 at Rockies: Lost, 6-2
• June 13 at Brewers
• June 14 at Brewers
• June 15 at Brewers
• June 17 vs. Nationals
• June 18 vs. Nationals
• June 19 vs. Nationals
• June 20 vs. Diamondbacks
• June 21 vs. Diamondbacks
• June 22 vs. Diamondbacks
• June 24 at Padres
• June 25 at Padres
• June 26 at Padres
• June 27 vs. Brewers
• June 28 vs. Brewers
• June 29 vs. Brewers

Pitching matchup
MIN: RHP Kevin Slowey (2-6, 5.15 ERA)
Slowey continued a recent rough patch for the Twins' starting staff, lasting just three innings and giving up eight runs in a 12-2 loss to the White Sox. The right-hander allowed 10 hits and gave up one home run. It marked the ninth time this season that Slowey has given up a long ball. Prior to this rough start, Slowey had gone 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA in his previous three outings. Slowey will be starting against the Brewers for just the second time in his career. In his first start against Milwaukee, Slowey allowed four earned runs over 5 1/3 innings.

MIL: RHP Dave Bush (2-6, 5.85 ERA)
When Bush gets through the first inning, he's usually OK. In his 11 first innings this season, opponents have batted .319 (15-for-47) with four doubles, five home runs and seven walks. He has surrendered more runs (11), hits and homers in the first inning than in any other frame. Bush has surrendered a first-inning homer in each of his last three starts, including two on Saturday at Coors Field, a grand slam to Brad Hawpe and a Chris Iannetta solo shot on the next pitch. Bush has surrendered a first-inning homer four times this season, but before Saturday, all of those games ended in Brewers wins. Bush is 2-1 with a 3.45 ERA in his five Miller Park starts vs. 0-5 on the road.

Tidbits
Delmon Young was out of the Twins lineup again on Thursday as Gardenhire said that he wanted to put both Jason Kubel and Craig Monroe in the lineup against Tribe left-hander Aaron Laffey. It's the third time Young has sat in the club's last 17 games after recording a streak of 217 consecutive games played. ... The Twins signed four more players from last week's First-Year Player Draft, including two from the first 10 rounds -- fourth-round pick Daniel Ortiz, an outfielder from Benjamin Harrison High School in Puerto Rico, and seventh-round pick Dan Osterbrock, a left-handed pitcher from the University of Cincinnati. The Twins have now signed 10 players from the 2008 Draft. ... Carlos Gomez recorded his first steal since May 25 on Wednesday night. It was a result, Gardenhire said, of the center fielder showing a little more patience on the basepaths. "I think he was starting to panic about it," the skipper said. "I told him yesterday that, 'Just because you're getting thrown out doesn't mean that we'll stop running. We're just going to try to pick out counts in better situations.'"

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On the Internet
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•  Official game notes

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On radio
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Up next
• Saturday: Twins (Glen Perkins, 2-2, 4.58) at Brewers (Jeff Suppan, 4-4, 3.78), 6:05 p.m. CT
• Sunday: Twins (Scott Baker, 2-1, 3.60) at Brewers (Seth McClung, 3-3, 4.07), 1:05 p.m. CT
• Monday: Off-day