'Always ready' Ober earns spot in Twins' rotation

MINNEAPOLIS -- On pretty much any other day, Bailey Ober's start would have been more than good enough to lead the Twins to victory -- but that wasn’t the case on a challenging Saturday afternoon at Target Field for situational hitting and the back end of the bullpen.

At least this time, Ober knows that he’ll get the chance to do it again in a few days.

For parts of three seasons now, the Twins have been able to count on Ober giving them a competitive outing, at minimum, just about every time he takes the mound. For the first time this season, he’ll get the chance to do that for the foreseeable future as a member of the starting rotation, starting with his 5 2/3 stingy innings in Minnesota’s 3-2 loss to the Royals.

“I try not to think about it too much,” Ober said. “I'm just trying to go out here and do my job, and hopefully, I perform well enough to make them decide that I should stay up here.”

Ober allowed only one single and two walks through his first four innings before an Edward Olivares double and Nicky Lopez's RBI single in the fifth tied the game at 1. Ober was pulled with two outs in the sixth inning, having allowed one run on four hits and two walks to go with six strikeouts.

The right-hander would have been the victorious pitcher had the Twins not gone 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position, or if Jorge Polanco’s scalded line drive to right field with two on in the fifth inning had eluded a sliding Nick Pratto, or perhaps even if Polanco hadn’t been tagged out at second base on what appeared to be a homer in the first inning that instead proved a long single off the top of the wall.

“More of the same from him, more quality innings,” manager Rocco Baldelli said of Ober. “He's a good pitcher. He's very consistent in the way his outings look from my vantage point.”

It is indeed more of the same, because this is simply who Ober has been as a Major Leaguer. In his Sunday start against Washington, he also went 5 2/3 innings, allowing one run on three hits. He has now allowed three or fewer runs in 25 of his 33 big league outings, and he has also yielded five or fewer hits in 25 of his starts.

Coming off a 3.21 ERA in 11 starts during an injury-shortened 2022 campaign, Ober would have been a clear-cut mid-rotation starter for many teams around MLB, but he ended up in Triple-A to begin the year through no fault of his own, with the five starters ahead of him remaining healthy through spring.

But now, Kenta Maeda’s triceps strain has created a consistent opening.

“Sticking to my routine, being able to fall back on making sure I'm getting everything I need … and always being ready, no matter what day it is, whether I'm supposed to be pitching down in Triple-A or just getting ready,” Ober said.

“Being ready for any last-minute notice, last-minute calls to come back up here.”

It’s been a chaotic week for Ober, who was optioned back to St. Paul immediately after that previous outing against the Nationals. He flew to Rochester, N.Y., early Tuesday morning to rejoin St. Paul, threw a bullpen on Wednesday and got a call during batting practice telling him to get back to Minnesota.

On Thursday afternoon, he boarded a flight home. On Friday, he acclimated back to the big league environment. Saturday, he was on the mound -- and through all that, he was still the same old Ober.

But he thinks the best is yet to come.

In Spring Training, Ober showed glimpses of far more zip on his fastball than in years past, throwing as hard as 94.2 mph following an offseason of improved health. Pitching in the cold, he hasn’t been able to show that off yet, with his 92 and 93 mph offerings in the first inning on the radar gun fading to 89s and 90s in the late innings.

But as the weather warms up, Ober hopes to heat up with it -- and for now, that’ll be in Minnesota.

“Obviously, with the weather, it's a little bit different than pitching in 85, 90 degrees,” Ober said. “Feeling a little tighter. Throughout the league, everyone's probably dealing with the same thing.

“But overall, felt good. Feel like the body's moving well. Feel healthy.”