MINNEAPOLIS -- Considering how much time Emilio Pagán spent aggressively swinging golf clubs in the weight room at his house this offseason, it’s a wonder that he adamantly insists that his golf game is no better than when it all started.

That wasn’t the point, anyway. All that daily swinging of weighted golf clubs was meant to improve his rotational speed in his delivery, which he was confident would help his stuff play up, even as the Twins entered 2023 without the expectation of using him in leverage situations.

But necessity has called and Pagán has answered, stepping into the leverage role the Twins had in mind for him when they first acquired him last season. The right-hander continued distancing himself from a challenging 2022 campaign with another high-leverage hold in the eighth inning of Minnesota’s 3-2 win over the D-backs on Friday -- and the Twins need him more than ever.

“Honestly, he’s been great,” bench coach Jayce Tingler said. “Our bullpen has withstood a lot of tests. We’ve been in a lot of close games. So, it’s just great seeing them come out and put up zeros.”

That bullpen has now had to weather the total loss (and eventual trade) of Jorge López from the leverage group, two absences by Caleb Thielbar and the continued delays to Brock Stewart’s recovery from right elbow soreness that sent him to the 60-day IL on Friday, which will keep him out of action until, at minimum, late August.

Pagán has stepped into that void with gusto, with his two groundouts induced against Tommy Pham and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the eighth inning continuing a surge that has seen him climb from no-leverage situations back up the bullpen ladder. His first hold of the season came on July 16; he has since posted three more and two wins in the next two-plus weeks, and the bullpen needs that to continue while Stewart recovers.

Pagán’s season ERA is 3.19; his ERA since May 22 is 1.78, with 27 strikeouts, nine walks and three homers allowed in that span of 30 1/3 innings.

Following all that weighted swinging with the golf clubs, he was confident that his stuff would be better than ever, and his stuff has spiked to a 96.6 mph fastball average in both July and August, after it peaked at 96.1 mph in any one month last season. He has consistently tracked ahead of his monthly averages from 2022.

“I feel like I've thrown the ball pretty consistently all year long,” Pagán said. “I've just been able to avoid one big swing or falling behind to two or three hitters in a row. I think that's probably the biggest thing I can point to: I'm ahead in counts more consistently.”

Case in point: Even after allowing a single to Christian Walker in the eighth, he kept Pham in a 1-1 count and got ahead of Gurriel, 0-2, giving himself a fighting chance to keep the tying run at second.

This kind of stuff and mentality is what the Twins hoped would still be in there when they brought him back for 2023 despite his well-publicized late-inning difficulties at various points last year. He felt those masked what had otherwise been a season in which he felt he mostly pitched well, marred by those visible bad outings turned by a big swing or two.

“We get a chance to look at every pitch that comes out of a guy’s hand, and what that pitch generally gives you as far as the results,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You combine that with usage and location and you should have your answer.

“There were appearances where not a lot of it made sense, the results were not what we were looking for, but it wasn’t all smoothly working together where we knew exactly what was going on. That happens in our game.”

And, yes, Pagán has had to tune out the external noise along the way, always recalling the words of his Rookie-ball manager on the first day of his professional career.

“He spoke on, ‘You're never as good as the fans tell you [that] you are, and you're never as bad as the fans tell you [that] you are,” Pagán remembers. “‘But if you can come in and be the same guy every day and care about the person next to you more than yourself, you'll play for a long time.’ … I try to remember that speech every single day.”