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Just about every move the Twins have made from the end of the 2022 season to the present day -- from the Luis Arraez-for-Pablo López swap to taking a flyer on Dallas Keuchel -- has been with the goal of building and maintaining depth.
This is where it pays off.
After Keuchel took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Pirates on Sunday, manager Rocco Baldelli said the Twins would consider a six-man rotation upon Joe Ryan’s return this weekend from a groin strain. On Wednesday, he also affirmed the Twins are “considering everything,” from that to possibly piggybacking starters.
“I think [six is] a possibility, I do,” Baldelli said. “Before I walked down here to talk to everyone, it’s one of the things we were just talking about, and we’ll continue to talk about. … It’s nice to have a lot of guys throwing the ball well at the same time.”
It makes sense for a lot of reasons.
In the bigger picture, the Twins entered Thursday with an 88.4% chance to make the postseason, per Baseball-Reference, and a 92.3% chance according to FanGraphs. Such is the benefit of playing in the American League Central, in which the second-place Guardians entered Thursday six games below .500.
Had the Twins been in a tighter race, they might have looked for ways to use their off-days to find as many starts as possible for López and Sonny Gray. Instead, they can afford to give their rotation extra rest until either the postseason or if the division tightens up.
Even if Keuchel won’t be in a playoff rotation, his presence can help everyone around him.
Though Baldelli noted after Tuesday’s loss that Bailey Ober’s early hook (five innings, 78 pitches) was due solely to the game situation, the Twins will be interested in limiting his innings, as they have in the past. The righty is already well past his career high in innings (118 2/3).
Similarly, López has a history of arm issues and only pitched his first full, healthy season last year. Gray has never been a workhorse and has already pitched his most innings since 2019. Kenta Maeda’s resurgence has been a nice surprise, but it’ll be prudent to limit his exposure coming off Tommy John surgery.
Any extra rest or ease in workload could help later on when the games matter most -- and it looks like the Twins are trying to take advantage of the opportunity.