Minneapolis – Marco Raya didn’t get any sleep Tuesday night. Shortly after he left Louisville Slugger Field, he got the call he’d been waiting for his whole life; he was going to the major leagues.
“Yeah, I was getting ready for bed, and then I got the call,” Raya said. “So I was like, I was already going to bed, so just a little bit earlier wakeup for me. I didn’t sleep at all.”
The only upside in his struggle to fall asleep was that Marco Raya had plenty of time to let his parents, siblings, and friends know he would be at Target Field on Wednesday.
“My family, yeah, they’re going to make it,” Raya said. “They’re in Texas, South Texas, Laredo, and they were able to make it so it’s pretty crazy.”
Raya earned his call-up after a strong month and a half on the mound at Triple-A. Over his last 16 outings, Raya has only allowed three walks while posting a 3.58 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, .214 opponents’ average, and struck out 26 batters in 27 ⅔ innings. It’s an incredible turnaround for Minnesota’s fourth-round pick from the 2020 MLB Draft, who only transitioned to the bullpen at the end of last season.
Raya’s teammates and coaches have anticipated his call-up to the majors because of the hard work he puts in each day at the park and how his presence brightens the clubhouse each day.
“You know I root for all these guys, especially guys like Marco, who I had for a little while in St. Paul, too,” said Twins MLB Field Coordinator Toby Gardenhire, who managed Raya in 2024 and 2025. “He’s got great stuff, he’s a great kid, he works really hard. It’s cool to see him get a chance.”
“It’s awesome,” teammate Andrew Morris, who chimed in on Raya’s media scrum, while asking what hair product Raya uses for such a good flow. “It’s been a long time coming, so it’s awesome to have his locker next to mine; it’s pretty cool.”
Raya was added to the 40-man roster in November of 2024 after he finished the season, making his first career start in Triple-A. 2025 was a down year for Raya as a starter. He battled mental hurdles on the mound during a bad stretch of seven starts in which he posted a 13.97 ERA, 2.22 WHIP, .321 opponents’ batting average, walked 16 batters, and struck out 26 in 19 ⅓ innings.
The Twins moved him into a reliever role at St. Paul in mid-August last season. He had an adjustment period to end the 2025 season, posting a 4.91 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate, and 11.4% walk rate over 18 ⅓ innings. The Twins knew they had something in Raya with his stuff, a strong curveball and slider to complement his fastball, and things really clicked into place this year.
“Last year, when I was transitioning to the bullpen, it was a little bit challenging, just more so on the routine part of it,” Raya said. “But now that I’ve had quite a bit of innings under my belt in the bullpen, I’ve kind of gotten used to it, and I’m a little bit more comfortable.”
“I think anybody that’s on our 40-man and the fact that we’re also right across the river, you have a good idea where it’s at,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said on the latest reliever the Twins called up.
“So very aware that — I didn’t know it was actually three walks. I knew [Raya] had been on the plate a lot more. And I think, you know, even early on, we’ve seen it with some of our guys. The weather’s not the most conducive, but the consistency of his strike throwing over the last month, month and a half, has been something that we’ve been very focused on.”
Raya has still been making adjustments here and there on the mound. Still, the change in how his command has shaped up over the last two months has had everyone talking within the org, even if they didn’t know just how few walks he’d allowed.
With a good track record finally underneath his belt at Triple-A, the Twins are ready to see what he can do out of their bullpen. He may debut against Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers for his MLB debut on Wednesday. It’s a challenge for any rookie, but not one that has Raya intimidated by any means.
“I like a challenge, so I’m happy to pitch against them,” Marco Raya said. “I’m ready. I wasn’t trying to put too much mind to it really, just trying to take it day by day and game by game, and whatever happens, happens. God’s timing is perfect. Really just trust in that.”
“The big thing is, as a coach, you give these guys things to work on, and one of these things Marco needed to work on was not walk guys,” Gardenhire said. “So when you give a guy a goal to not walk people, and then he goes out there and accomplishes it as well as he’s doing, that’s what you want to see. It’s really cool. It’s cool for coaches to see it, it’s cool for players to be able to do it, so he’s doing a great job.”
