Ober strikes out 10 in glimpse at growing potential

MINNEAPOLIS -- Unfortunately for the Twins, the vast majority of Bailey Ober’s sophomore campaign in the big leagues was cut short by an extended injury. But on Tuesday night, the right-hander showed his club a tantalizing glimpse of what this season could have had in store if he had remained healthy.

Ober doesn’t have the name recognition of a Kenta Maeda, a Sonny Gray or a Tyler Mahle, but the Twins were counting on the 27-year-old to build on a steady rookie campaign and take the next step in establishing himself as a rotation mainstay this year. As his 7 1/3 innings of two-hit, scoreless ball against the White Sox showed on Tuesday in a 4-0 victory at Target Field, there could very much still be positive momentum to be found for him at the end of a mostly lost ‘22.

So, do Ober and the Twins allow themselves to wonder what could have been?

"Maybe a little bit, but it's hard to think that way during the season,” Ober said. “Maybe after the season, I'll try to ponder a little bit. I'm just trying to control what I can control and take it one day at a time and do my best for my team."

“When I look at what he’s done in his career, both Minor League and Major League, he’s always been a productive pitcher,” manager Rocco Baldelli added. “He’s been good throughout. Always has been. I would anticipate going forward, he will be, too. So, what he could have done if healthy, not worth worrying about. The things that we do know; he is healthy right now and he’s throwing the ball right now about as well as I’ve ever seen.”

After missing a combined four and a half months across two stints on the injured list with a lingering groin strain, Ober returned on Sept. 16 by allowing one hit in five shutout innings as part of a do-or-die game against the first-place Guardians that might have had implications in the division chase had the Twins been able to put together a better series in Cleveland.

He followed that with a less dominant, but still effective five-inning start a week ago in which he allowed three runs, leading into this masterpiece, the best of his Major League career.

Let’s put it this way: It’s been a rarity for any Twins starter to even see the eighth inning this season, and it wasn’t even much of a question if Ober would get that far as he kept his pitch count down and suffocated the White Sox with an unusually slider-heavy arsenal that led to a career-high 10 strikeouts, tied for most in an outing by any Twins pitcher this season.

“His ability to kind of rip those sliders was, that was pretty fantastic,” Baldelli said. “I think that stood out in a lot of ways. He had the good command of all of his offspeed pitches. On top of that, we know that the fastball is always something that teams have to be ready for with him. ... I don’t know why it was that today happened to be the day where he went out there and all of his offspeed stuff was there from the start.”

Ober’s previous career-high in strikeouts was seven, but fueled by an aggressive White Sox lineup that led the right-hander and catcher Gary Sánchez to lean more heavily on the slider -- the normally fastball-centric Ober threw a career-high 33 -- Ober struck out the side in the second and fifth innings, the latter coming as part of a chain of five consecutive strikeouts that led into the sixth inning.

The strikeouts were seemingly always likely to come for Ober given his Minor League track record, featuring 263 strikeouts and only 29 walks in 214 1/3 innings. But his focus this season has been more of limiting mistake pitches -- often costly homers -- that pushed his ERA up to 4.19 in an otherwise stingy rookie season last year, in which he allowed 20 long balls in 92 1/3 innings.

He’s done that so far, having allowed one homer since his return -- with mostly sparkling results that seem to bode well for ‘23.

“I felt good at the beginning of the season,” Ober said. “I had decent numbers. Be able to come back here with my full repertoire and be in control of all four pitches, that's what I'm used to. That's what I hope to bring out every single outing.”