Thursday Twins: A farewell to Phil Hughes, and an update on Michael Pineda

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• The Twins are basically paying Michael Pineda a million dollars this year to rehab from Tommy John Surgery, and according to the latest update, things are progressing well. If he can throw a few innings this year, or even just get healthy, he’ll be a nice rotation option for 2019.
• Phil Hughes remained a classy guy through all his struggles during the Twins organization, and even after being DFA’d, he stayed that way. Brandon Warne got the thoughts from the rest the club on the news, and the Hughes news prompted Jay Jaffe to look into the history of pitchers with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (spoiler alert: it’s not great. The history, that is. The article is pretty good.)
• Did you see Brian Dozier get a ball stuck in the padding yesterday? This was apparently the second time he’s done that, which is kinda cool.
• Tampa Bay did a weird thing this weekend, and had the same reliever start two games in a row. Tampa is doing all sorts of strange things with their pitching this season, but this is a new idea. Trevor Hildenberger would be on board with the Twins trying something like this, but Paul Molitor seems a bit less interested.