Twins could mull options after Bailey Ober ties team record with 14 homers allowed in June

New York Times

10 hours ago

DETROIT — The hard hits keep coming for Bailey Ober, who surrendered a team-record 14 home runs in June, including four more on Saturday afternoon.
The Detroit Tigers shredded a pitcher who's earned a reputation as one of the Twins' steadiest in a 10-5 contest in front of 33,780 at Comerica Park. Not only does the 14 homers allowed match Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven's Twins club mark set in May 1986, Ober is tied with five other pitchers for the second-most homers yielded in a calendar month in the history of Major League Baseball.
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The latest poor outing sent the Twins to their seventh straight loss with Ober on the mound and made homers from Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa moot. It's also likely to keep Twins decision-makers busy the next few days mulling how long they can keep starting Ober, who posted a 9.00 ERA in 30 innings in June.
'We assess everything,' Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. 'We've made a number of small adjustments along the way, and we have to keep looking for different adjustments to make. And that's really what this is all about. Sometimes you look at everything and you give it a full glance, top to bottom, and you immediately see what you need to see. Sometimes you don't, but you continue to look and you find it.'
June 2025 is easily the worst month of Ober's five-year career. Prior to his last five starts, Ober's highest ERA in a month with at least two starts made was when he produced a 5.63 ERA in August 2023, a stretch that resulted in a brief demotion to Triple-A St. Paul.
A trip back to St. Paul is unlikely in this case, but the already shorthanded Twins potentially would look at other options.
With a day off on Monday, it could be as simple as the Twins choosing to skip Ober's next turn in the rotation and bringing him back for a start before the All-Star break. But, utilizing the strategy would prevent the team's other starters from receiving an additional day of rest near the halfway point of the season, something the Twins generally like to do to manage pitchers' workloads.
The team's other option would be a placement on the injured list along with Pablo López and Zebby Matthews, which seemingly isn't out of the question after Ober noted earlier in the month he'd pitched through knee and hip discomfort, thus altering his mechanics. Even though the Twins are short on healthy starters at Triple-A St. Paul, they could perhaps turn to rookie Travis Adams and rely heavily on their bullpen in those games.
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Still, a day after he mentioned his hip, Ober noted he'd previously pitched through worse ailments and felt like he'd ironed the rust out of his mechanical issues, which left him hopeful about his upcoming turn.
But throughout June, Ober's dealt with one hardship after another.
Buxton's two-run homer off Detroit's Casey Mize in the top of the third inning Saturday put the Twins in front 2-1, and Ober responded with two quick outs. Had he retired Kerry Carpenter for the third out, the Twins would have held their first lead after a full inning in which Ober pitched since the fourth on June 6, an outing in which the tall right-hander blew a 3-0 lead against Toronto.
Instead, Carpenter worked a lengthy at-bat, fouled off a 3-2 pitch and then hammered a hanging slider for a game-tying solo homer. Ober allowed two more two-out singles before escaping the inning with a tie.
But his rough day was only getting started.
Ober started the fourth inning with a walk, and Zach McKinstry followed with a bloop single to left. Two batters later, Detroit went ahead 3-2 on Colt Keith's sacrifice fly. One pitch later, Gleyber Torres hammered a 90 mph fastball for a two-run homer.
Ober yielded another solo homer to Riley Greene to start the fifth inning, a booming shot to right field. McKinstry hit a solo shot to start the sixth inning, too.
'I wish I knew,' Ober said. 'We're looking at everything. … Just got to try to figure something out, make some adjustments. I feel good. Throwing good pitches and just getting hit.'
Whether or not he'll have an opportunity at home against the Tampa Bay Rays next weekend could be in doubt.
The barrage of June homers is double Ober's previous high output for a single month (May 2024), when he posted a 5.46 ERA in 31 1/3 innings. Not only did the four round-trippers Saturday allow Detroit to put the Twins away early, it moved Ober into a tie with Blyleven — who posted a 6.39 ERA in May 1986 and yielded 430 homers in his career — and four others.
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The only other pitcher in modern baseball history to allow more homers than Ober and Co. was the Washington Senators' Pedro Ramos, who gave up 17 in June 1957.
'This game is really cruel,' catcher Ryan Jeffers said. 'It's something everyone goes through at some point in their career. The last couple of years, (Ober's) been that rock in our rotation. … It doesn't matter what's going on right now, we still trust in that guy and believe that guy is in there. Yeah, it's frustrating, and it's frustrating for us playing behind him. We want to see him succeed. We need to see him succeed. But I don't think anybody blames him. He knows he has to be better. There's a lot of things in this game where you know you've got to play better. But, we're not going to sit there and say 'It's all Bailey.' He's been really good for us for a long time.'
Though Ober has always been a fly ball pitcher, he's been one of the Twins' most consistent arms since joining the rotation in 2021. When Ober is going good, his outings are filled with swings and misses and weak contact off opponents' bats.
Ober was on a good run in May, limiting his opponents to two homers and posting a 2.76 ERA in 29 1/3 innings. He's followed with a dreadful month that raised his season ERA from 3.48 to 5.90 and career ERA from 3.73 to 4.01.
'The homers are obviously an issue,' Baldelli said. 'If we knew exactly what was going on, if it was one particular thing, it would be a little easier to identify. But we're going to get back to working on it and spend a lot of time on it. … He's a guy that normally, when he gets into situations, can make a pitch, can figure out a way to get through. But it's not just one pitch. There are different pitches that are getting hit right now. We're going to have to go back to school a little bit and rework some things. He'll be ready. I mean, he's going to put in the time and energy and prepare for whatever's next.'