{"id":26725,"date":"2025-06-30T09:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T09:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26725\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T09:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T09:06:10","slug":"twins-could-mull-options-after-bailey-ober-ties-team-record-with-14-homers-allowed-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26725\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins could mull options after Bailey Ober ties team record with 14 homers allowed in June"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT \u2014 The hard hits keep coming for Bailey Ober, who surrendered a team-record 14 home runs in June, including four more on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Tigers shredded a pitcher who\u2019s earned a reputation as one of the Twins\u2019 steadiest in a 10-5 contest in front of 33,780 at Comerica Park. Not only does the 14 homers allowed match Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven\u2019s Twins club mark set in May 1986, Ober is tied with five other pitchers for the second-most homers yielded in a calendar month in the history of Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

The latest poor outing sent the Twins to their seventh straight loss with Ober on the mound and made homers from Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa moot. It\u2019s also likely to keep Twins decision-makers busy the next few days mulling how long they can keep starting Ober, who posted a 9.00 ERA in 30 innings in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe assess everything,\u201d Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. \u201cWe\u2019ve made a number of small adjustments along the way, and we have to keep looking for different adjustments to make. And that\u2019s really what this is all about. Sometimes you look at everything and you give it a full glance, top to bottom, and you immediately see what you need to see. Sometimes you don\u2019t, but you continue to look and you find it.\u201d<\/p>\n

June 2025 is easily the worst month of Ober\u2019s five-year career. Prior to his last five starts, Ober\u2019s highest ERA in a month with at least two starts made was when he produced a 5.63 ERA in August 2023, a stretch that resulted in a brief demotion to Triple-A St. Paul.<\/p>\n

A trip back to St. Paul is unlikely in this case, but the already shorthanded Twins potentially would look at other options.<\/p>\n

With a day off on Monday, it could be as simple as the Twins choosing to skip Ober\u2019s next turn in the rotation and bringing him back for a start before the All-Star break. But, utilizing the strategy would prevent the team\u2019s other starters from receiving an additional day of rest near the halfway point of the season, something the Twins generally like to do to manage pitchers\u2019 workloads.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s other option would be a placement on the injured list along with Pablo L\u00f3pez and Zebby Matthews, which seemingly isn\u2019t out of the question after Ober noted earlier in the month he\u2019d pitched through knee and hip discomfort<\/a>, thus altering his mechanics. Even though the Twins are short on healthy starters at Triple-A St. Paul, they could perhaps turn to rookie Travis Adams and rely heavily on their bullpen in those games.<\/p>\n

Still, a day after he mentioned his hip, Ober noted he\u2019d previously pitched through worse ailments and felt like he\u2019d ironed the rust out of his mechanical issues, which left him hopeful about his upcoming turn.<\/p>\n

But throughout June, Ober\u2019s dealt with one hardship after another.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bailey Ober\u2019s next start against the Tampa Bay Rays next weekend could be in doubt. (Stephen Maturen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Buxton\u2019s two-run homer off Detroit\u2019s Casey Mize in the top of the third inning Saturday put the Twins in front 2-1, and Ober responded with two quick outs. Had he retired Kerry Carpenter for the third out, the Twins would have held their first lead after a full inning in which Ober pitched since the fourth on June 6, an outing in which the tall right-hander blew a 3-0 lead against Toronto.<\/p>\n

Instead, Carpenter worked a lengthy at-bat, fouled off a 3-2 pitch and then hammered a hanging slider for a game-tying solo homer. Ober allowed two more two-out singles before escaping the inning with a tie.<\/p>\n

But his rough day was only getting started.<\/p>\n

Ober started the fourth inning with a walk, and Zach McKinstry followed with a bloop single to left. Two batters later, Detroit went ahead 3-2 on Colt Keith\u2019s sacrifice fly. One pitch later, Gleyber Torres hammered a 90 mph fastball for a two-run homer.<\/p>\n

Ober yielded another solo homer to Riley Greene to start the fifth inning, a booming shot to right field. McKinstry hit a solo shot to start the sixth inning, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I knew,\u201d Ober said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at everything. \u2026 Just got to try to figure something out, make some adjustments. I feel good. Throwing good pitches and just getting hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not he\u2019ll have an opportunity at home against the Tampa Bay Rays next weekend could be in doubt.<\/p>\n

The barrage of June homers is double Ober\u2019s previous high output for a single month (May 2024), when he posted a 5.46 ERA in 31 1\/3 innings. Not only did the four round-trippers Saturday allow Detroit to put the Twins away early, it moved Ober into a tie with Blyleven \u2014 who posted a 6.39 ERA in May 1986 and yielded 430 homers in his career \u2014 and four others.<\/p>\n

The only other pitcher in modern baseball history to allow more homers than Ober and Co. was the Washington Senators\u2019 Pedro Ramos, who gave up 17 in June 1957.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis game is really cruel,\u201d catcher Ryan Jeffers said. \u201cIt\u2019s something everyone goes through at some point in their career. The last couple of years, (Ober\u2019s) been that rock in our rotation. \u2026 It doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s going on right now, we still trust in that guy and believe that guy is in there. Yeah, it\u2019s frustrating, and it\u2019s frustrating for us playing behind him. We want to see him succeed. We need to see him succeed. But I don\u2019t think anybody blames him. He knows he has to be better. There\u2019s a lot of things in this game where you know you\u2019ve got to play better. But, we\u2019re not going to sit there and say \u2018It\u2019s all Bailey.\u2019 He\u2019s been really good for us for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Ober has always been a fly ball pitcher, he\u2019s been one of the Twins\u2019 most consistent arms since joining the rotation in 2021. When Ober is going good, his outings are filled with swings and misses and weak contact off opponents\u2019 bats.<\/p>\n

Ober was on a good run in May, limiting his opponents to two homers and posting a 2.76 ERA in 29 1\/3 innings. He\u2019s followed with a dreadful month that raised his season ERA from 3.48 to 5.90 and career ERA from 3.73 to 4.01.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe homers are obviously an issue,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cIf we knew exactly what was going on, if it was one particular thing, it would be a little easier to identify. But we\u2019re going to get back to working on it and spend a lot of time on it. \u2026 He\u2019s a guy that normally, when he gets into situations, can make a pitch, can figure out a way to get through. But it\u2019s not just one pitch. There are different pitches that are getting hit right now. We\u2019re going to have to go back to school a little bit and rework some things. He\u2019ll be ready. I mean, he\u2019s going to put in the time and energy and prepare for whatever\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Top photo: Nic Antaya \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 The hard hits keep coming for Bailey Ober, who surrendered a team-record 14 home runs in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1287,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-26725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-minnesota-twins","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114771524797740186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}