DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Jhoan Duran delivers a different kind of heat from the mound -- and from the moment he jogs out from the bullpen at Target Field, the Twins make sure everyone in the stadium knows that.

They turn down the lights. They play the sound of crackling flames from the speakers. Duran is lit by an eerie orange glow as he jogs in, surrounded by animated flames on the ribbon video boards circling the stadium.

The fastball is the main attraction, as the hardest-thrown pitch in the Majors in 2022, on average. But depending on whom you ask, it’s actually tough to pick which of Duran’s pitches might be the best one. The fact that he throws 103 mph and there’s still any debate at all is rather telling, as the 25-year-old prepares for his sophomore campaign in the big leagues.

Though it took Duran until deeper into the 2022 season to find his highest velocity (with the fastball averaging 100.1 mph in April and 101.5 mph in September), a wicked sequence of pitches during a scoreless sixth inning in the Twins’ 7-0 victory over the Blue Jays on Wednesday showed that he’ll be rolling into the start of '23 in his nastiest form.

He started off Bo Bichette with fastballs at 103.1 mph and 103.0 mph. Then, came the “splinker” (more on that in a moment) at 98.7 mph -- and Bichette had no chance at the curveball at 89.2 mph, flailing over it for strike three. The next pitch was a “splinker” at an eye-popping 99.2 mph.

Duran smiled when asked which of his pitches is the best.

“My fastball, for sure,” Duran said. “Yeah, my fastball. Because I throw it fast, and I throw it in the zone.”

Easy answer, right? He had just thrown the fastball 103 mph twice against Toronto, after all.

But how about the history-making and unique “splinker,” the splitter-sinker hybrid, believed to be the only offspeed pitch ever thrown above 100 mph when Duran did so last year?

“I feel like that's probably one of the best pitches in all of baseball,” Twins starter Bailey Ober said. “Maybe top five, could be, all time. I mean, he threw a 100 mph one last year. I don't think that's ever been done.”

And how about the curveball, the unsung hero of the repertoire, which boasts the best advanced metrics and which Duran calls his second-best pitch? Hitters slugged .311 off his fastball last year, and .462 off the “splinker,” but only .217 off the curveball. They missed on 49.7% of swings against the curveball -- a much higher clip than against Duran’s other pitches.

“If you have a pitch that no one can hit and you can throw it for a strike and they don’t swing at it a lot of the time, and when you throw it for a ball and they do swing at it, it’s kind of exactly what you're looking for,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The abruptness of the pitch is something that guys just don’t seem to be able to combat or react to.”

That’s three legitimate weapons, each special in its own way. Duran says he’s scrapping the cutter he has thrown at various points in the past, because he says it makes him “forget, sometimes,” his curveball.

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Those other three pitches have played up since the Twins moved him to the bullpen last spring and let him loose upon the league as one of the game’s best relievers, with a 1.86 ERA, 89 strikeouts and only 16 walks in 67 2/3 innings.

The stuff is playing up out of the bullpen -- and so, Duran, who has professed to miss starting, seems to be coming around to how the shorter stints help him stay healthy and maintain his best stuff.

“I love starting, but relieving, I love it too, now,” Duran said.

Duran says that an emphasis on stretching exercises with his back and legs can help him maintain his strength this season -- and though Baldelli and the Twins have adopted the wider baseball trend of being more flexible with their reliever usage, instead of naming a single closer in their bullpen, the 25-year-old Duran indicated that the potential of earning that title would add meaning, as he aims to continue to push the boundaries of pitching.

“That’s more important, when you’re the closer or the starter,” Duran said. “Those are the biggest two parts in the game. I’m working towards being a closer.”