The Minnesota Twins’ bullpen is exhausted. In recent weeks, the relievers who have remained healthy all season are showing signs of wearing down from the long year.
Jhoan Duran blew the save in extra innings against the Milwaukee Brewers on August 23. Griffin Jax gave up two hits, two walks, and four runs in Saturday night’s loss to the Texas Rangers and only recorded one out.
Emilio Pagán has pitched better recently. However, he surrendered a couple of runs earlier in Wednesday’s game that led to Milwaukee’s comeback win. And there’s always the fear he could return to his 2022 form at the worst possible time.
Fortunately, the much-needed reinforcements for the Twins bullpen are coming. Brock Stewart and Jorge Alcalá are set to go on a rehab assignment soon, and Chris Paddack might return before the season is over.
Then there’s this. Dan Hayes of the Athletic reported that the Twins are considering moving Louie Varland and Kenta Maeda into the bullpen to give the team their best chance to hold leads in the postseason.
Entering the final month of the season, Minnesota’s bullpen reinforcements are on their way. With a six-game lead in the AL Central and six games left against the Cleveland Guardians, the Twins may have the luxury of not overworking their returning arms from the injured list.
And that should be the approach with Stewart and Alcala when they return. As crucial as it is to get them back on the mound in high-leverage spots during the regular season, they’ll need to save them for heavier workloads in the Wild Card series.
Before Sunday’s game against the Rangers, Twins head trainer Nick Paparesta spoke with the Twins beat writers about the current health status of the two relievers. According to Paparesta, Stewart still has a light workload in these bullpen sessions with the team. But Stewart is slowly adding up the number of pitches he throws each session.
“The plan is for him this week, as we do with most of these guys during their buildups, he’ll go off the mound twice this week,” Paparesta said, “and then we’ll just kind of see as we continue to increase his intent and effort level, how he responds from that on a day-to-day basis.”
Currently, there is no set timeframe for Stewart to begin a rehab assignment. Paparesta indicated it will be dependent on how each bullpen session goes over the next few days.
Alcalá is a different case. Paparesta told reporters that if he throws well against live hitters while the Twins are still home for their series against Cleveland, he could begin a rehab assignment in ten days.
“As we go over a large number of guys, we have basically a rehab team that can hit off of him. So it kind of works out really well for us to be able to see him,” said Paparesta. “So he’ll throw live twice this week. Probably look to get him three total and then start getting him into some rehab assignments after that. He’s trending in the right direction.”
Alcalá told reporters that it’s been a frustrating few months since he landed on the IL in mid-May, but that frustration hasn’t worn away at the progress he’s made in his timetable to return.
“I’ve thrown five bullpens. I’ve been feeling great,” Alcalá said. “I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress, and I’m just ready to get back on the mound. It’s been great to see the team in first place. Of course, it motivates me. I want to be ready to join the team and support as much as I can in the bullpen.”
Stewart knows he still has a little more time than Alcalá for his return. He told reporters that he felt pain in his last bullpen session. Still, the low effort workload made it easier to deal with and identify than in previous sessions. He doesn’t feel that he’s too far away from being in a better place.
“Probably when I throw all of my pitches close to max effort off the mound,” said Stewart. “The next day after that, see how I recover so probably I think the activation date is targeted around September 10, give or take a couple of days one way or the other. So maybe in like a week and a half or so, I should be able to build up the intensity in the bullpens here.”
Duran, Jax, Pagán, and Caleb Thielbar are the four pitchers in the Twins bullpen who are guaranteed to be a part of the postseason roster as long as they’re healthy. The four other pitchers currently in their bullpen, Dylan Floro, Dallas Keuchel, Cole Sands, and Josh Winder, are either toss-ups or unlikely.
The Twins will likely send Sands and Winder back to Triple-A once Alcalá and Stewart return from the injured list. Pending how Floro and Keuchel perform out of the bullpen over the last month of the season, one of them could have their role filled in by the likes of Varland to give extra help in long-relief options for the postseason.
The 26-man will expand to the 28-man roster on September 1 and allow room for one other pitcher to be in the bullpen. Varland could be that pitcher as neither Stewart nor Alcalá will be activated by then.
Paddack’s return timetable is still not a certainty, and his situation could end up like Maeda’s last season. The Twins reduced Maeda’s possibility of returning from Tommy John in September once they were out of the playoff race.
The good news is one more bullpen spot will open up the opportunity for this exhausted reliever group to get extra rest. The bad news is that the Twins will have to make a tough decision regarding who gets included on the postseason roster.
The Twins have four more games to get through until they can add an extra arm to the active roster. And with their scheduled off-day offering little relief after a 13-inning win, they’ll need their starters to step up to alleviate the workload for relievers in the final week of August.
