17 August 2023
It’s easy to see problems in the back end of the Twins’ bullpen. The number of hits are higher, the losses mounting, the earned-run averages ballooning.
What it means, on the other hand, is less clear. Have closer Jhoan Duran and set-up man Griffin Jax run into serious trouble, or are their recent struggles simply part of life for a major-league reliever?
“Both have been very good for us for a long time and they’ll adjust,” manager Rocco Baldelli said Wednesday after Jax (5-7) took the loss in an 8-7 setback to the Detroit Tigers at Target Field.
Given a 4-3 lead to start the seventh inning, Jax got a quick out from No. 9 hitter Jake Rogers before running into big trouble. He walked Akil Badoo, gave up the tying run on a run-scoring triple by Riley Greene, then gave up back-to-back home runs to Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter to put the Twins behind 7-4.
Minnesota Twins relief pitcher Jhoan Duran celebrates after striking out St. Louis Cardinals’ Taylor Motter to end a baseball game Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, in St. Louis. The Twins won 5-3. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
“I just feel like I’m not locating where I need to,” Jax said after the game. “When you’re leaving pitches (over the) middle, it doesn’t matter who you are facing. Big-league hitters are going to do damage on it.”
Badelli’s top high-leverage right-hander who’s not Duran, has a 6.55 ERA, a loss and three blown saves in 12 games since July 19. In his 23 appearances before that, Jax had allowed just one earned run on eight hits and two walks.
The difference, Jax said, has been execution.
A fastball-slider pitcher who relies primarily on his slider — 58 percent, according to Statcast — he was hurt Wednesday primarily on his slider. Although Greene hit a cutter for his triple, Torkelson and Carpenter both homered on sweepers.
“What I feel most comfortable with when I need to get a guy out is going to the slider,” Jax said. “I just wasn’t able to do that.”
Although Baldelli wouldn’t come right out and say it, he suggested after Wednesday’s game that a failure to retire batters in two-strike counts — whether it’s because of pitch selection or execution — has been an issue for both Jax, 28, and Duran, 25, when they struggle.
“I never want to fault a guy for throwing strikes, but against some hitters, you want to be out of the zone,” the manager said.
While Jax has a high-end slider and a fastball that reaches 96 mph, according to Statcast, the issue seems more acute with Duran because his fastball averages 102 mph, and was clocked at 104.8 mph in Seattle last month — the fastest anyone has thrown this season. Yet in a save situation on Tuesday, Duran had Torkelson down 0-2 in the count and threw him an 87.5 mph, low inside curve that the first baseman hit 416 feet into the second deck in left field.
For the season, Duran has 63 strikeouts in 46⅔ innings yet is allowing opponents to hit .323 in his past 16 appearances, with 21 strikeouts in 15⅔ innings. Before that, he had allowed three earned runs in 20 appearances (21⅓ innings).
“No one in the world is that good all the time,” Baldelli said. “We still have an excellent late-game reliever who can get any group of hitters out regardless of their skill level. But I think the expectation that he’s not going to give any runs and not give up any hits is unrealistic.”
Another thing to consider is that the Twins are playing their best baseball since the first few weeks of the season, 19-14 since the all-star break ended, and will enter this weekend’s three-game series against Pittsburgh at Target Field at least four games up on second-place Cleveland in the American League Central.
During Jax’s struggles, the Twins are 9-3. And while Duran is allowing more hits and runs over his past 16 games than at any time this season, the Twins are 12-4 in those games.
Duran, Baldelli said, “has adjustments (to make). He has things he’s going to keep working on, and we’ll stay on him with that. But I’m not sitting here worried or panicking.”
As for Jax, he acknowledged his recent troubles putting hitters away, and that opponents have been hitting him hard the past month or so. But he was eager to flush Wednesday’s game, and confident he would bounce back.
He’s done it once before this season after a rough start — 2-6 with four blown saves and a 5.59 ERA in his first 20 games.
“There is a good chance I’m going to be pitching again on Friday when we’ve got the Pirates coming into town,” Jax said. “That’s one of the benefits to the bullpen: You just get thrown right back out there the next day. I would be doing myself a disservice if I let one game put me in a bad spot mentally.”
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