Minnesota Twins pitcher Bailey Ober again uses April to wipe away a March mess

CLEVELAND - Bailey Ober might be the greatest April starting pitcher in Twins history. Which is strange, because he is unquestionably their worst March starter ever.

By allowing only one run over 7⅔ innings Monday, Ober completed an incredibly rare statistical oddity — again. For the second consecutive season, he gave up fewer runs in April than in March.

“Not exactly what I was trying to do,” said Ober, who allowed seven runs over 30 innings in April but eight runs in a mere 2⅔ innings in March, all on March 30. “It’s not how you want to start a season.”

No, but after a stumbling start — he allowed eight runs in only 1⅓ innings in his season opener in 2024, too — there are virtually none better. Ober owns a 2.00 ERA in 15 April starts, lower than any Twins pitcher who has started 10 or more April games. Only once has he allowed as many as four runs in an April game, and that was in 2022.

His ERA in March? A hard-to-explain 36.00. Considering the Twins have played only 16 March games in their history, Ober is responsible for 27% of all the runs the Twins have given up.

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“My first game this year was really bad. I was feeling sick, so I wasn’t executing the way I need to,” Ober said of the 9-2 loss in St. Louis. “I didn’t feel good, but thought I could do what I needed to keep the team in it. Just didn’t work out.”

There has certainly been no carryover effect.

“I don’t think he lets too much bother him or drag him down and get in the way of his next start. Nothing gets in the way of Bailey’s next start,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There is some maturity that goes into that. You spend time around him, you realize he handles his pitching the way he handles just about everything in life — ready for whatever challenges are in front of him.”

Even if the challenge is just to forget and move on.

“I don’t know how he does it,” Baldelli said. “Most people would probably screw themselves into the ground, starting the season like that.”

Christian Vázquez was in the Twins’ lineup Tuesday, only his third start in the past 10 days. Vázquez spent a big part of that layoff taking extra batting practice.

His offensive numbers have plummeted to the point where, for the first time in three seasons with the Twins, he isn’t playing in every other game. He’d managed only five hits in 36 at-bats (.139) coming into the game, with one RBI, three walks and seven strikeouts. Things got a bit better Tuesday, when he went 1-for-3 and raised his average to .154.

“It’s hard,” said Vázquez, who started 93 games in 2023 and 84 games last year. “It’s hard if you don’t see at-bats frequently, but I don’t make those decisions.”

The man who does says he understands Vázquez’s disappointment.

“He’s very competitive — you want your players to have this mentality. He would love to play every day,” Baldelli said. “Ultimately, he’s handled it very professionally. He continues to work, and he’s very prepared.”

He’s working on more or less unlearning what he focused on more than a year ago. Believing he needed to improve his bat speed, Vázquez visited the data-based training facility Driveline during the offseason before last season. But after hitting only .221 with a .575 on-base plus slugging percentage in 2024, he’s trying to return to his old swing.

“I was too much into Driveline. A lot of swings and a lot of drills that made my swing feel not right,” said Vázquez, who believes the Twins’ Trajekt pitching machine, which can replicate the pitches of any pitcher in the game, is helping in that regard. “Be comfortable at the plate and see the ball. If you don’t see the ball, it’s hard to get hits and have good at-bats. I feel like that’s the main thing.”

The Minnesota Star Tribune’s Bobby Nightengale contributed to this report.