Woods Richardson meets challenge vs. Cy Young contender

MINNEAPOLIS -- Simeon Woods Richardson walked into the Twins’ clubhouse at Target Field ahead of his start on Tuesday, and that’s when he looked at the lineup card and saw that he’d be starting opposite Phillies ace Zack Wheeler.

“Game recognize game,” Woods Richardson said. “Lot of respect. He's a great pitcher. So I knew it was going to be a shootout tonight.”

A pitching shootout, that is -- and the confident young rookie backed up that sentiment with arguably the most impressive start of his career.

Usually soft-spoken and easygoing off the field, Woods Richardson punctuated the sixth inning by punching his right arm twice in an emphatic celebration after Trea Turner ran into an out at second base. That was the lasting image as the 23-year-old went toe-to-toe with Wheeler in a pitchers’ duel for six scoreless frames in the Twins’ eventual 3-0 loss to the Phillies.

“He showed them what he had, and he had a lot,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He had everything to be a top-flight starting pitcher tonight, and really, the entire season.”

There’s not much more the rookie could have done to pitch the team to victory -- as he has done so often this year, as the Twins are now 12-5 in games he has started this season, best among the team’s starters.

But the Twins couldn’t take advantage, as closer Jhoan Duran’s normally ironclad control faltered in the ninth. He followed a one-out double by Bryce Harper with consecutive walks to Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto. That led to a Brandon Marsh sacrifice fly and Nick Castellanos' two-run double, allowing the Phillies to break open a scoreless tie.

“I’m not sitting here thinking this is a bigger-picture conversation right now at all,” Baldelli said of Duran's outing. “It was a bit of a rough night, but it’s not something that I’m going to bed thinking this is something we have to talk about much more.”

Woods Richardson had navigated the first three innings with only a walk and a single allowed against the potent Philadelphia lineup -- the sixth-best offense in baseball, per FanGraphs' WAR. He had also retired nine in a row entering the sixth inning.

Woods Richardson erased a leadoff single by Johan Rojas by picking the speedster off first base. And when Trea Turner roped a two-out hit to the left-field wall, Woods Richardson watched from the mound as Matt Wallner cleanly played the carom and fired a 90.1 mph strike to second base, where Edouard Julien applied the tag, sending Woods Richardson into a frenzy.

“I mean, come on. Did you see it?” Woods Richardson said. “Cannon. Perfect. Definitely what we needed at the time, very monumental in the game. Yeah, I'm going to show it. I'm going to let my guy know he just made a hell of a play.”

That’s the kind of emotion the Twins don’t often see from the youngster, but if there were ever a moment for it to show, it would be at the end of only his third scoreless effort of the season, made doubly impressive by the fact it came against the Phillies.

All the Twins asked of Woods Richardson when he took over the fifth spot in the rotation from a struggling Louie Varland in April was to be steady and keep the Twins in games. He’s certainly done that, now carrying a 3.27 ERA for the season.

And on Tuesday, he showed a glimpse of far, far more -- the kind of outing that would perhaps have been easier to dream of when the Twins once acquired him at the 2021 Trade Deadline as a Top 100 prospect, but one that felt more distant from reality as Woods Richardson lost most of his prospect luster thereafter.

econd scoreless effort of the season, made doubly impressive by the fact it came against the Phillies.

All the Twins asked of Woods Richardson when he took over the fifth spot in the rotation from a struggling Louie Varland in April was to be steady and keep the Twins in games. He’s certainly done that, now carrying a 3.27 ERA for the season.

And on Tuesday, he showed a glimpse of far, far more -- the kind of outing that would perhaps have been easier to dream of when the Twins once acquired him at the 2021 Trade Deadline as a Top 100 prospect, but one that felt more distant from reality as Woods Richardson lost most of his prospect luster thereafter.

Forget thinking of Woods Richardson as a rookie in a surprisingly resurgent season, though; at this point, he’s simply one of the Twins’ most reliable starters.

“He’s done it against everyone,” Baldelli said. “I mean, we’ve challenged him. I can’t think of us really protecting him or trying to keep him out of series, which sometimes -- with young pitchers -- you do stuff like that. We haven’t really done that.”

"Just doing my job, man," Woods Richardson says -- and boy, has he done it well.

“It's definitely something to build off of and grow off of,” Woods Richardson said. “You're always playing great competition. Just accepting that [and] realizing those moments, what you can take from them and kind of work on it.”