An intriguing tweet from Patrick Reusse last night: "Front office has balked at DL stint for [Pat] Neshek. One reason: Unwillingness to give manager his preferred pitcher -- Anthony Slama."

Who's Anthony Slama? Just one of the champion strike-throwers in all of professional baseball. That's all.

By most accounts, Slama throws two decent pitches, a low-90s fastball and a slider. Yawn, right? No wonder this guy wasn't drafted until the 39th round.

Except in three professional seasons (plus eight innings this season), Slama has racked up 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings. Baseball America described Slama as Neshek's heir, as Neshek also doesn't throw particularly hard but also would routinely strike out more than a dozen hitters per nine innings. Also, both are 6-foot-3 and rely on violently deceptive deliveries and keeping the ball low.

Here's the thing, though. Slama throws harder. Slama strikes out more hitters. Slama gives up fewer home runs. In the minors, anyway. That doesn't mean he'll be as good as Neshek. But it does make you wonder why management is reluctant to bring him up, aside from the fact that he's got just 24 above the Double-A level.

I also wonder if someone's simply afraid to have Neshek and Slama on the roster at the same time. It would be a little like having Charlie Haeger and Tim Wakefield in the same rotation, or Arthur Rhodes and Darren Oliver in the same bullpen. OK, so the planet probably wouldn't explode ... but do you really want to find out?

Actually, yeah. I do.

According to Reusse (in a follow-up tweet), Slama isn't on the 40-man roster, so if he's added to the 25-man roster somebody will have to be bumped from the 40-man and thus exposed to waivers. For instance, somebody like right-handed reliever Rob Delaney. The Twins don't like to give up prospects, even marginal ones like Delaney (who's a Grade C prospect, with Slama somewhere between a B-minus and C-plus). And to this point, there's been no reason for them to. Not with Slama having pitched only 24 Triple-A innings and Neshek still avoiding the disabled list.

Eventually, though, somebody on the big club's going to get hurt, or just flat struggle (we're looking at you, Jesse Crain). At which point management might have to make a tough decision. And I'm betting we see Slama in the majors by Memorial Day.

Maybe we'll get lucky. When worlds collide, just about anything might happen.