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The Twins bullpen has been a bit taxed lately, to say the least. It wasn’t just yesterday’s 14-inning loss to the Royals, in which the team burned through four bullpen arms after Kyle Gibson’s impressive 7.0 scoreless innings, either. On Monday, the team used seven pitchers (including starter Lance Lynn); on Sunday the team used four pitchers (including starter Jose Berrios); and on Saturday the team used another six pitchers (including Jake Odorizzi) in yet another extra-innings affair against the Mariners.
Whew. Welcome to the world of “bullpening”, I guess?
The Twins bullpen desperately needs reinforcements, and hence, the team is expected to recall RHP Aaron Slegers on Wednesday. Slegers had been scheduled to start Wednesday for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, but was scratched from the game. The call-up isn’t official yet, but even the Star Tribune is reporting it, which is good enough for me. Slegers makes sense for the promotion, given his arm should be able to go the distance if Fernando Romero falters. Consider it “anti-bullpening” or something.
The call-up wouldn’t be totally undeserved, however, as Slegers has been tearing it up in Triple-A. His last start was a bit rough — he gave up nine earned runs to the Buffalo Bisons on May 25th — but before that, Slegers had been sporting a 1.97 ERA over 50.1 innings (his ERA is now 3.27 over 55.0 innings).
Slegers appeared in four games for the Twins in 2017, pitching a a total of 15.1 innings with a 6.46 ERA and 1.17 WHIP.
No word yet on what the corresponding roster move will be, but ESPN 1500’s Darren Wolfson has a troubling speculation:
One possible #MNTwins move to bring Slegers up is to DL Buxton. He’s playing through a ton of pain.
— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) May 30, 2018
UPDATE [4:54 pm CT]:
Welp, it appears Wolfson was correct.