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Entering this season, it would have been difficult to find many Twins fans who had even heard of Brock Stewart, let alone knew that he’d been in big league camp until the final week of Spring Training.

But as May wraps up, it’s tough to imagine where the Twins’ bullpen would be without the 31-year-old’s surprise emergence.

While the Twins have had to forge ahead through the recent struggles of both Griffin Jax and Jorge López and an oblique injury to Caleb Thielbar, they’ve had to rely increasingly often on Jovani Moran and Stewart in higher-leverage situations -- and Stewart passed one of his most significant tests on Saturday, earning his first save since 2017 for his clutch escape.

“He’s kind of stepped right in after maybe an outing or two and gone into some of the most important and stressful parts of the game,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s handled them all really well. He had a lot of experience under his belt coming into this year. So, this isn’t a newbie where you’re just kind of wondering how he’s going to handle it all. He’s handled it really well.”

The Twins used Jhoan Duran to face the heart of the Blue Jays’ lineup in the eighth inning, with the idea that López would come in for a less stressful part of the lineup in the ninth -- and, at that point, the Twins had stretched their lead to 9-4. But when López allowed a two-run homer and put two more on base without recording an out, the Twins had to make a change -- and Stewart was the one available for the call.

His task: Hold the Twins’ 9-6 lead, with George Springer, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. due up. No pressure.

“With the adrenaline running, I was already hot when I picked up the ball, you know what I mean?" Stewart said. "The arm, I guess, needs a couple throws to get going for sure. But no, it's pretty easy to get hot quickly when things are coming down to the wire like that and the top of the order's coming up."

He got Springer to fly out to center, then allowed an RBI knock to Bichette. Guerrero lifted a fly ball to right, and after Stewart went up 0-2 on Brandon Belt, he uncorked the hardest pitch of his career, a perfectly dotted fastball on the inside corner at 99.7 mph, to secure the save as both he and catcher Ryan Jeffers yelled and pumped their fists.

The significance of that feat wasn’t lost on Stewart, who is throwing harder than ever and hadn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2019 before this season -- and that was before he underwent both Tommy John surgery and arthroscopic elbow surgery months apart in the intervening years.

As he shared in a video filmed by Tread Athletics, it was a big deal when he hit 96 mph indoors during his recovery, which, at the time, had been the hardest pitch he’d ever thrown in a bullpen setting.

And now, somehow, he’s pushing 100 mph in games. When he last pitched in the big leagues in ‘19, his four-seamer had averaged 91.7.

“I've been through quite a bit,” Stewart said. “To have my best stuff now at 31 years old, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to help this team. I just wanted to get back into pro ball. And here I am in the big leagues, helping a winning ballclub win games. Thrilled, man.”

The Stewart experience has been far from perfect, as he’s still reining in his control (he has 15 strikeouts in 14 innings, but the 11 walks definitely represent an area for improvement). But given where the rest of the bullpen is right now, he’s been exactly what the Twins have needed: A big arm with big stuff that can match up against both right-handed and left-handed hitters.

Of the eight runners Stewart has inherited, only two have scored. And after Saturday, he is now 14 appearances into the season without being charged with a run himself, which represents the third-longest streak of scoreless appearances to begin a season in Twins history, and three shy of the club record set by Thielbar in 2013.

Speaking of which, Thielbar is headed on a rehab assignment on Tuesday and should return to the bullpen soon. López and Jax are still throwing elite stuff, and the Twins hope the results will return to that level, too.

And in the meantime, they sure seem to have found quite the arm in Stewart, who certainly looks like he’ll find a home in many more big innings through the end of the season.

“It feels great for sure to be thrown in leverage situations and come out on top and have good results,” Stewart said. “It's great. Kind of just focus on the process and treat every outing like the same. Just try to go out there and make good pitches, attack the strike zone and the results are just going to happen, good or bad. Today, they were good. It was super fun.”