On August 27, 2019, Taylor Rogers snagged a Ryan Goins comebacker to secure his 21st save of the season in the Minnesota Twins’ 3-1 win over the Chicago White Sox. Immediately after catching the line-out, Rogers scurried inside and stood in front of the television.

There, in the bowels of the White Sox’s stadium on the South Side, he watched his twin brother make his major-league debut for the San Francisco Giants.

Really special moment in the #MNTwins clubhouse tonight.

Taylor watching twin brother Tyler make his @MLB debut with the @SFGiants shortly after he recorded a save for the @Twins pic.twitter.com/EkPKpPGflf

— Dustin Morse (@morsecode) August 28, 2019

Tyler Rogers threw a crisp 1-2-3 inning in San Francisco’s 3-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants didn’t pick up the win. Still, after seven years in the minors, Tyler Rogers, 28, had reached the majors.

“It was awesome,” an emotional Taylor Rogers said that day. “I was probably the most excited person on planet earth right there.”

Taylor Rogers, now 35, signed a one-year, $2 million contract to return to the Twins this offseason. Seven years have passed since that day. Rogers is no longer a closer; he throws 91 mph, not 95. Still, he recalls his brother’s debut as if it were yesterday.

“I remember it vividly. I got the save that day,” he said. “We came back in. [Senior Director of Team Travel] Mike Herman was more excited than I was. He had it up on the TVs in the White Sox clubhouse.

“If I remember right, Derek Shelton held the buses.”

The Twins hired Shelton to replace Rocco Baldelli this offseason. However, “Shelty” was Baldelli’s bench coach in 2019. He had served as Paul Molitor’s bench coach the year before and helped Baldelli with the transition.

Baldelli was taking over for a Minnesota baseball legend. The Twins had tasked the “Woonsocket Rocket,” who spent most of his playing and coaching career with the Tampa Bay Rays, with turning around a team that had lost 84 games under Molitor the year before.

In Baldelli’s first year as a manager, the Bomba Squad hit a major-league record 307 home runs and won 101 games. The Twins missed the postseason in seven of eight seasons before they hired Baldelli, but he led them to the playoffs in three of his first five seasons. In 2023, they won their first playoff series since beating the Moneyball A’s in 2002.

However, ownership slashed Minnesota’s payroll by $30 million in 2024, and they played on a reduced payroll again last year. Still, without the depth they had in 2023, the Twins collapsed in 2024 and conducted a fire sale. Baldelli and later Falvey became the fall guys, while Jeremy Zoll and Derek Shelton took their place.

One upside to the managerial change? It enticed Rogers to return to the place where he started his career.

“I told Shelton on the phone that if he was managing a team in Fargo, North Dakota, I would want to go there,” said Rogers.

He’s also excited to work with new Twins bullpen coach LaTroy Hawkins.

“Anybody that’s aged gets it,” said Rogers, who got informal advice from Hawkins, the former Twins reliever who pitched 21 years in the majors, during Rogers’ first stint in Minnesota. “You used to just rely on talent alone, and now you’re trying to use your experience.

“How do you continue to advance when you’re at the latter part of your career? He may have done that.”

Minnesota drafted Taylor Rogers in the 11th round of the 2012 draft out of the University of Kentucky. A year later, the Giants took Tyler Rogers in the 10th round out of Austin Peay. Taylor and Tyler had played college ball in the south, but graduated from Chatfield High School in Littleton, Co., a Denver suburb.

Taylor reached the majors first, debuting with the Twins in 2016. He converted two saves in 2018. A year later, he was Minnesota’s full-time closer and finished the season with 30 saves. He made his first and only All-Star team in 2021.

Before Opening Day in 2022, the Twins traded him and Brent Rooker to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Emilio Pagán and Chris Paddack. It was an ill-fated deal for Minnesota. Rooker had a negative WAR in San Diego but became an All-Star with the A’s, where he has produced a 9.9 WAR.

“You couldn’t really say bye,” said Rogers, who only returned to Target Field once after the Twins traded him. “There was closure at some point. I never really thought that coming back would be an option. Now that it is, it’s incredible.”

Taylor Rogers had a -0.1 WAR with the Padres, who flipped him to the Milwaukee Brewers for Josh Hader. Rogers finished the year with the Brewers, then signed a three-year, $33 million deal with the Giants. He played two years with Tyler in San Francisco before signing with the Cincinnati Reds last year.

“It was so cool,” Rogers said regarding playing with his brother. “We never even thought it was going to be possible.

“I just got to do two years with him. That was the best.”

A year after playing with his brother, Taylor Rogers is back in Minnesota, playing for a manager who held the buses so he could watch Tyler’s debut. His life has come full circle in what is likely his last year in the majors. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to spend it in Fargo.