Not ready, but it's not a big deal yet

It's hard to imagine Francisco Liriano's third start with the Twins going any worse.
2/3 of an inning, five hits, three walks and six runs. A total disaster.
By the time you read this, the Twins will have announced that Liriano is going back to Triple-A Rochester, with Red Wings closer Bobby Korecky getting called up to give the Twins 'pen another arm. With a few off days coming up, the Twins will probably be able to survive without a fifth starter until Kevin Slowey is ready to come off the DL.

It was clear that Liriano wasn't ready for a call-up, and the Rochester coaching staff warned the Twins that was the case, but they called him up anyway.
Even though he wasn't ready it still made some sense. The Twins wanted to be able to keep tabs on Liriano themselves. To be able to monitor his habits daily. That's understandable.
So if they still wanted to do that, they could just move Liriano to the bullpen and use him as a mop-up guy.

But apparently confidence is as much the issue as anything physical, so maybe a trip back to the minors makes sense. The most important thing, as Ron Gardenhire stated after the game, is that Liriano just keeps throwing. It doesn't really matter where. But for right now, going down to the minors can't be a bad thing.

There's really no reason to be surprised by any of this. Liriano didn't throw for, what, 19 months? What do you expect? Of course he won't have any command, or bite on his breaking pitches.

Surely the idea that Liriano will ever return to his former self is in doubt, but that was already the case as soon as he had TJ surgery. Nothing that has happened in these first couple months of his comeback have made a full recovery any more or less likely.