Gant struggles in Twins' patchwork rotation

BOSTON -- John Gant faced the Red Sox on Thursday night, his second start in turn as part of the starting rotation -- and that was never part of the plan when the right-hander arrived in a Trade Deadline deal from St. Louis.

Gant had been thriving as part of the Twins’ bullpen following his arrival, with his walk issues seemingly gone and his strikeout numbers way up in short stints as a reliever. But in a longer stint, the control issues that defined his year in St. Louis flared up again to put Minnesota behind early in a 12-2 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park. And necessity has certainly put the Twins’ rotation in quite the tough situation in the final month and a half of the season.

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While Chris Sale subjected the Twins to an immaculate inning in the third, the first Minnesota had ever been involved in on either side, Gant walked a pair in the second inning and allowed a three-run blast to Bobby Dalbec, who led Boston’s offense with seven RBIs.

Gant allowed another run in the third before the latest edition of Minnesota’s makeshift bullpen -- Kyle Barraclough, Edgar Garcia, Ralph Garza Jr. and Willians Astudillo -- allowed more crooked numbers the rest of the way.

“We didn't get a ton going today offensively,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We struggled to throw strikes, and that's a tough combination. If we're going to give free passes to good teams, we're going to end up with a result like we got today. There's not a ton to really say about it.”

Minnesota’s pitching staff has now allowed six or more runs in seven consecutive games, and Thursday’s loss marked the 16th game of the season in which the Twins gave up 10 or more runs, six shy of the club record set in 1997.

Beyond Gant, the Twins will start 35-year-old Andrew Albers on Friday against Milwaukee for his first start with the team since 2016, in his third go-round with the organization. Charlie Barnes will throw on Saturday. In fact, none of the five pitchers in Minnesota’s current rotation of Gant, Albers, Barnes, Bailey Ober and Griffin Jax were on the roster when the season began, and only one -- Ober -- was on the 40-man.

Were any of them supposed to be part of the plan -- even to a lesser extent -- this season? Pitching coach Wes Johnson stopped himself from giving a direct answer -- but what he did say still spoke volumes.

"Good question, but a tough question,” Johnson said. “When you sit back and look at the season and where we were and what we were supposed to do, you figure a few guys are going to get called up in September and that's about it. But yeah, I couldn't answer that question."

Between injuries, trades and a pair of free-agent implosions, Minnesota’s original rotation of Kenta Maeda (arm injury), José Berríos (trade), Michael Pineda (oblique injury), Matt Shoemaker (underperformance) and J.A. Happ (trade) appears a figment of the distant past, and the Twins still have to scrape together 35 more starts before they can break for the offseason.

“We're going to cover them,” Johnson said. “Here's the way I tell Rocco. 'We're going to take it one day at a time.' He'll come ask me, 'How's this guy?' 'He's good today.' We're going to map it out one at a time.”

Ober has impressed with a 4.06 ERA through 15 starts, but questions about his workload will linger through the end of the season considering his extensive injury history, though the Twins have made no indication of a possible shutdown for the right-hander. Jax has continued to improve, and Barnes and Albers can also give the Twins some innings.

With Maeda, Pineda, Lewis Thorpe and Devin Smeltzer all on the injured list, the Twins simply don’t have many options left. Fortunately for them, Randy Dobnak made a rehab start for Triple-A St. Paul on Thursday and threw 78 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, leaving him in line to take over Gant’s rotation spot at some point.

Beyond that, right-hander Joe Ryan, the No. 6 prospect in the organization, could also surface in the big leagues for a handful of starts following an impressive two debut outings for St. Paul (17 strikeouts and two walks in nine innings) following his delayed arrival from the Rays’ organization in the Nelson Cruz trade due to his spot on Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics.

As soon as Dobnak and Ryan can stretch out to a fuller workload, help is on the way for the Twins. And though it might not be pretty for Minnesota’s pitching, as it often has been on this road trip, the makeshift rotation is just aiming to survive the season.

“You have to take these types of situations for what they are and make the absolute best out of them, and there’s always something to figure out that you can use to help you going forward, and that’s what we’re going to do with the guys that are out there right now,” Baldelli said.