Butch and Sundance.
Kirk and Spock.
Mario and Luigi.
Zebby and Festa.
The Minnesota Twins need to promote Zebby Matthews and David Festa so they can finally take their place among the great duos of our time.
Six weeks into the 2025 season, things are finally going right for the Twins. After sweeping the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday afternoon, the Twins are almost one game under .500.
Things could be going even better, and Zebby and Festa are how it gets that way.
To build the starting rotation into a superweapon, the Twins should bring up their right-handed pitching prospects from Triple-A St. Paul right now. Or as we sometimes put it in journalism, RIGHT NOW.
The Twins already possess one of the best pitching staffs in Major League Baseball. Coming into action Thursday, Minnesota was fifth in the league in WAR (via Fangraphs), eighth in ERA, and second in K-BB% ratio.
But, or as we sometimes put it in journalism, BUT: Twins starting pitchers also were tied for 21st with the Cleveland Guardians (eww) in innings pitched. Kansas City Royals starting pitchers, who lead the league, have logged 30 more innings. The Royals happen to be in second place in the AL Central. The Twins are looking up at three teams, including KC.
Imagine how much better the Twins’ won-lost record would be if their fourth and fifth starters could pitch six innings in a game, like the top of the rotation does from time to time. Not to mention: limiting the opposing team to one run or two, instead of three or four.
More innings and fewer runs allowed from the starters would mean less stress on the bullpen, which has been effective overall, despite some showing soft spots at times. It’s a great bullpen, as long as it’s not overworked. Outside of left-hander Danny Coulombe, nobody is in danger of being overworked. Yet. Preventive steps.
Festa and Matthews are a solution that doesn’t involve making a trade or jacking up the payroll. Completely in-house. And how are they doing for the Saints? Pret-ty good.
Festa has a 3.60 ERA with a 22-2 K-BB ratio in 20 innings, having gotten into the sixth in each of his past two starts. Festa also posted a 1.38 ERA in three starts when the Twins brought him up in April with Pablo López on the shelf.
Zebby sure seems ready for another turn in the majors. He has a 3.09 ERA and 266 strikeouts in 237 2/3 career minor-league innings. This season, he has a 2.30 ERA with 34 strikeouts, nine walks, and one home run allowed in 27 1/3 innings.
Zebby and Festa are ready for the Twins, and the Twins are ready for Zebby and Festa.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli made a great tactical move Wednesday night, even if he had to stoop to Stephen Vogt-type activity to make it happen. Baldelli had to do it because the starting rotation was leaving the team short again.
Right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson had allowed just a run and two hits through the first four innings and needed only 44 pitches to get there. He was looking good for his first six-inning appearance of the season.
Until he wasn’t.
Ahead by two runs in the fifth, Woods Richardson got two outs before allowing consecutive line-drive hits to Ramon Laureano, Heston Kjerstad, and Emmanuel Rivera, the combination of which cut the lead in half and put the go-ahead run on first base.
Baldelli had Coulombe ready in the bullpen for the Orioles’ lefty-heavy lineup, and he made the change, even though SWR had made just 61 pitches. It smacked a little of the moves Vogt has made repeatedly for Cleveland, tiptoeing somewhere between urgent and desperate, bringing in the cavalry from the bullpen like it was October. But it was the right thing to do, not just because it worked out, with Coulombe getting out of the jam and retiring two more batters in the sixth.
Nobody on the Twins has done their job better this season than Coulombe, who has allowed seven hits, one walk, and no runs in 14 1/3 innings over 16 appearances. A not-so-minor issue is his career high of 51 innings pitched, done twice in his career. At age 35, Coulombe is on pace to go about 54 innings. It should make you a little nervous.
(A holy mackerel aside: The Twins front office hit three home runs in free agency this past offseason, with Coulombe, Harrison Bader, and Ty France. Imagine if ownership gave Derek Falvey and Jeremy Zoll an actual checkbook to pay new people instead of jars filled with change collected from sofas around the Twin Cities.)
Anyway, Woods Richardson was allowing hard contact the third time through against Baltimore’s order, a dangerous time in any game for a lot of starting pitchers. SWR is vulnerable there too, allowing a .438 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging the third time through. Besides, his average outing ends, typically, at 4 2/3 innings. SWR had reached his end. Trouble is, there still are too many outs to go at that point for him to be sustainable as a starting pitcher on a flawed playoff contender.
Chris Paddack averages about the same outs per start as SWR, though he’s been exactly at five innings over his past four starts, with solid results: a 2.25 ERA and an 18-8 K-BB rate in 20 innings. Paddack has been stepping up, but leaves too much meat on the bone for the bullpen to chew off. He’s also due for some regression.
If everything else was going great for the Twins, and they were leading the playoff hunt instead of chasing like they did in 2024, they could continue with Paddack and SWR at the back of the rotation.
So, what should the Twins do with Paddack, Woods, and Richardson if Zebby and Festa get promoted? Well, it’s a fair question. It would be easier to answer if Paddack and SWR were pitching poorly, but they’re not. It’s still early for the trading season, with three-plus weeks to the deadline, although the Baltimore Orioles sure look like they should be in the market for at least two starting pitchers right now.
The Twins could try to go to a six-man rotation, and they actually could pull it off, but league rules also limit them to having 13 pitchers total on the roster. Two would have to be taken off to bring up two from the minors. Paddack wouldn’t go to Triple-A and shouldn’t have to. However, SWR has a minor-league option. He’d get regular work for St. Paul. He’d have a chance to come back.
That leaves one more pitching spot. Jorge Alcala has been getting terrible results, and part of it is because his command has been brutal. But he’s got good stuff, and it’s something of a mystery as to why he can’t make it work. Inconsistency is one thing, but he’s in a rut. Problem: While he has options, he has accrued enough MLB service time to reject a minor-league assignment. Alcala might be the kind of player you can trade (the Houston Astros moved Rafael Montero to the Atlanta Braves recently), but the trade leverage would be all with the other team. The Twins wouldn’t get what he’s worth.
That could leave them with no choice but to find a phantom injury for Alcala. Give him some time off, get him reset mentally, and give everybody time to think of a permanent solution.
Whatever it takes for the Twins to make room for Zebby and Festa. Their time has come. The sooner the Twins realize this in a literal way, the better.
Han Solo and Chewie.
Barbie and Ken.
Woodward and Bernstein.
Zebby and Festa.
