Ryan O’Rourke pukes before every time he pitches

Twins Communications and Player Relations guy Dustin Morse has been doing an on-going Twitter series this Spring Training where he shares little-known facts about various Twins players. Just little nuggets of info like Adalberto Mejia used to play basketball while growing up and Eddie Rosario worked in a pizza shop when he was 15.

On Tuesday, Morse shared a fact about reliever Ryan O’Rourke that has been getting a lot of attention:

Uh... I mean, that’s cool?

“I go in the bathroom, or sometimes it’s just on the back of the mound. But, yeah, it happens,” O’Rourke told Mike Berardino, who dutifully inquired further about this odd fact. O’Rouke mentioned people used to follow him around with trash bags before he went out to pitch in the minors, so this isn’t just a big league thing either.

While it’s a colorful and entertaining detail, I personally don’t think it is... that weird? I used to run track in high school and I remember I always had to pee like ten times tight before I ran a race. Imagine the stress of pitching in professional baseball, let alone the majors. Stress can do weird things to the body! Doesn’t mean I won’t be more likely to wander over and take a look in the bullpen at Target Field next season if I see O’Rourke warming up...

The players seem to be having fun with it, at least.