St. Paul – Andrew Morris started the season as one of the Minnesota Twins’ top pitching prospects in Triple-A, but he had his first big injury setback in June with a right forearm strain that kept him off the mound for a month and a half.
It was the first time Morris ever had an injury that kept him out for more than a week, and it became a challenge for him to adjust to so much time off the mound.
“To be honest, it was frustrating,” said Morris. “I mean, just like feeling good and not being able to do anything once everything went away. And then also, as everything with all the trade deadline stuff and just feeling like I was missing opportunities.”
Before he went down with the forearm injury, Morris had a 4.41 ERA, .311 opponents’ average, 24 walks, and 60 strikeouts through 63 ⅓ innings over 13 starts. Morris had been battling issues tipping his pitches to opponents during that time, but things were turning around right before he landed on the IL.
He wasn’t allowed to throw for two weeks after being diagnosed with the forearm strain and had to build back up slowly in bullpen sessions. But once those sessions began, his stuff started to feel back to normal, and the results in the three games he’s pitched indicate that Morris has turned a corner.
“Stuff’s feeling really good,” he said. “Those first couple of bullpens, I felt like I forgot how to throw a baseball, but then it finally came back, and I was happy. Velo was good, stuff was good, strikeouts were good, everything was, I was seeing what I wanted to see, so it was good.”
Morris has only pitched seven innings in three starts since returning from the IL, but the sample size stats are trending in the right direction for him. He’s only allowed five hits, two earned runs, one walk, and struck out eight batters, throwing anywhere between 28 and 43 pitches in these outings.
“Pretty standard buildup, just continuing to give him a little bit more each time,” said Saints pitching coach Jonas Lovin. “Hopefully, get him to be built back up to a normal starting role at the end of the season. “
“It’s been good,” Morris said on the buildup. “I’ve been at a 30 pitch mark every time out. So, hopefully, you never know what happens in the game, but yeah, it’ll be good to go three, maybe four, and then go from there. It’s slow, but hopefully it will be good.”
Morris threw three innings of one-run baseball during his third outing since his return from the IL on Friday night, allowing his only run on a good bunt from Round Rock Express veteran outfielder Billy McKinney. Even though it turned into a disappointing 5-3 loss in extras for the Saints, Morris walked away feeling as confident in his stuff as he has all season, with his fastball velo reaching 98 MPH or more four times.
“Velo was there, off-speed was good, sweeper was good movement-wise, even though it actually wasn’t in the zone,” said Morris. “But I felt like stuff was really good, controlled what I could, probably should have covered first base, but that’s about it.”
“I thought he looked great today,” Lovin said. “Up to 98 MPH a couple of times, commanded his pitches really well. Like you said, just got beat by the small ball. Started working on his sweeper right before he went down, threw a couple of those tonight, the shape was really good.”
The sweeper is the pitch Morris has been working to add to his arsenal this season. It was something he, Lovin, and fellow Saints pitching coach Carlos Hernandez worked on at the beginning of this season. He hasn’t had the chance to use the sweeper in games as much as he’d like. Still, while Morris is working on getting back to form, he’s finding opportunities to tinker with it in bullpen sessions and in games.
“I think I’m just trying to throw it as healthy as possible in a way, and just make sure I’m just throwing it efficiently and not getting around it and doing anything bad there,” said Morris. “I’m just trying to make it move well, but also throw it safely.”
Morris feels his time spent on the IL may have caused some missed opportunities to make the big-league club following the trade deadline. Instead, he’s focusing on what he can do now to make that dream a reality in 2026, if not this year. But with where he sits right now, the most important thing for him is to finish the season healthy and back to a starter’s full work load, throwing five, six, and maybe even seven innings over the final four weeks of the Triple-A season.
“It’s not easy being so close to your hopes and dreams, everything you want to achieve,” said Morris. “So, it’s just me being honest about it, it’s true, it’s tough. I’m just trying to control what I can right now, and that’s just trying to perform well and doing well each week, and that’s all I can control. But it’s going well.”
