Update in the article on Mahle below and cool info on Brock Stewart's W.
FWIW -
Rocco said in spring training he was gonna let the starter go longer than last year - the
bolded stats below in the article validate him. He's still a young manager and learning and growing, as anyone does in other vocations when they go into management.
Makes sense strategically to have started with Madea and Mahle up here in the rotation to see what they have and Ober at Triple A, since he has options left. I'm guessing they figured one would break down at some point and maybe both, just not at the same time. i think we'll be fine as we have enough depth in the minors and if not, we have enough talent in the farm to acquire a lower level starter in a trade if need be; our 1-3 starters match up well against the rest of the league and that's all you'll need in the post season. I've liked Ober from when they brought him up - good mechanics and it's always difficult in my experience to hit off of such a tall guy - the ball always seems right on top of you.
MINNEAPOLIS — Just as the offense is heating up, the
Twins have lost starting pitchers to injury on consecutive days.
Tyler Mahle exited Thursday’s 7-1 victory over the
Kansas City Royals at Target Field with right posterior elbow soreness. A day after
Kenta Maeda was removed with a right elbow issue, one expected to land him on the injured list, Mahle was pulled after four innings.
Though the injuries cast doubt on the future of the team’s rotation, the biggest immediate impact was forcing the bullpen to cover the final five innings of Thursday’s blowout victory, a task Twins relievers handled with aplomb.
After
Trevor Larnach and
Max Kepler produced early RBI singles,
Byron Buxton blasted a three-run homer and
Carlos Correa belted a solo shot off
Zack Greinke as the Twins easily won, the fourth victory in five games.
“The stuff wasn’t going in the direction we wanted anymore,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Mahle. “We thought he might have humped up on a pitch and it didn’t come out the way it normally would. We grabbed him quickly after the fourth. Really when we noticed, the inning was pretty close to being over. And then it ended and we grabbed him. … He was OK. When I told him I preferred to take him out of this ball game, he didn’t fight me on it.”
The past two days aside, the
Twins’ starting rotation has played a prominent role in the team jumping out to a 15-11 start. Twins starters entered Thursday tied for second in the majors with 5.6 innings pitched per start and fourth in earned-run average (3.21).
While he’s been inconsistent, Mahle still pitched well enough in his previous four turns to bring a 3.32 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 21 2/3 innings into the outing. He looked good early Thursday, retiring nine of the first 10 he faced, the lone batter reaching on a Correa throwing error.
The pitcher’s fastball velocity, a figure many kept a close eye on throughout the spring and early season after he had shoulder issues last season, reached as high as 94.5 mph when Mahle struck out
Bobby Witt Jr. in the third inning, one of six strikeouts.
But when he returned to the mound an inning later, Mahle’s velocity dipped as low as 89.1 mph during an eight-pitch strikeout of
Michael Massey. Baldelli identified the area of concern as the posterior, the area in back of the elbow where it meets the triceps.
“It kind of just slowly creeped in,” Mahle said. “It was feeling pretty good, like, through three and then kind of got sore. … It didn’t feel great. I think that’s when we decided that we’ll probably just take me out and be smart about it. It was feeling pretty good up to that point and then just got a little worse. … It’s just inflammation. No one’s really concerned about it. So, we just sit back for a few days, let him calm down and it should be fine.”
Baldelli wasn’t certain whether Mahle would require an MRI. Mahle suggested he wouldn’t, but the Twins are likely to be extremely cautious with the pitcher, who was placed on the IL twice with shoulder inflammation after he was acquired from Cincinnati at the August 2022 trade deadline.
The injury comes a day after the Twins said they’d slow down Maeda, who also is experiencing elbow trouble. In Maeda’s case, the Twins don’t believe the pitcher’s injury is directly related to his Tommy John surgery in September 2021.
Maeda had an MRI on Wednesday that showed a muscle strain and inflammation. But they don’t believe the injury is a reoccurrence of the one that led to Tommy John surgery.
“It’s actually on the complete opposite side of his arm, and a little bit in the back of the tricep area of the elbow where he’s feeling most of the swelling and the discomfort and soreness,” Baldelli said. “That’s what you want to see. I keep saying it, but if you know that someone’s dealing with something in their arm, that’s an area that you can deal with.”
Maeda exited his first start of the season with right arm fatigue earlier this month. After making a second start, the Twins opted to skip Maeda’s turn in the rotation to give him additional time to rest.
Maeda had pitched twice since he was skipped, including allowing a career-high 11 hits and 10 earned runs in Wednesday’s loss. He was pleased with the shape of his off-speed pitches but his fastball averaged 88.5 mph.
Maeda isn’t ready to panic yet. He said other pitchers who’d had Tommy John surgery said they’d experienced similar issues.
“It seems like it’s not anything severe going on, at least in the elbow structure,” Maeda said through an interpreter. “So, that’s good news. Like I said, I still have to talk to the doctor.”
The Twins are likely to place Maeda on the IL soon, which would free them up to promote
Bailey Ober back to the majors to pitch in the starting rotation. A good pitcher over parts of the previous 1 1/2 seasons, Ober was outstanding in earning a victory over
Washington on Sunday.
With Mahle, the Twins aren’t ready to commit to a plan one way or the other. Were they to dip into the minors, the Twins could turn to
Louie Varland,
Simeon Woods Richardson or even
Brent Headrick, who struck out eight in five innings on Wednesday before he was demoted back to Triple A to make space for
Josh Winder, who was activated off the IL on Thursday.
“I’m not ready to set off any alarms right now,” Baldelli said. “We know in baseball we’re going to be dealing with guys that are feeling things and they’re not always going to feel perfect. You’re going to have to figure out the right way to work through the situation. And not every time a guy misses time is it an excessive amount of time. Every time you deal with something it’s going to be different, so you just kind of wait it out and see what you find out and you go on the information you have. I don’t really know and no one does. So, again, we’re going to see how Tyler comes in (Friday) and probably use the next 2-3 days at least to figure out exactly where he’s at before we can know.”
Stewart earns win in return to mound
Don’t tell
Brock Stewart that reliever victories are meaningless.
He earned the win and pitched in his first game in the big leagues in more than 3 1/2 years with two outstanding innings in relief on Thursday. Stewart looked sharp in a 28-pitch outing, his first appearance in the majors since Sept. 24, 2019.
A former infielder turned pitcher, Stewart, 31, has smelled the flowers the past few days since learning he’d return to the major leagues. After playing independent baseball in 2020, the right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery in May 2021 and 10 months later needed arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone spur.
Stewart wowed the Twins enough with his fastball velocity for them to sign him last July and bring him back this season. He averaged 95.8 mph and touched 97 mph on Thursday. Stewart also had nine swings-and-misses, including four with his new sweeping slider.
“There were days where I didn’t know if I wanted to keep going through the grind of the whole rehab process,” Stewart said. “But I’m sure glad I did. I always hoped and prayed I’d get back to this moment. To be here now, it’s very special. … I got emotional at different times on the plane so hopefully no one was watching me. It’s definitely awesome to be back here. Now that I’m here, it’s baseball now.”
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