It’s been an eventful few days of spring baseball for the Twins. They opened the stretch with a dominant 15-0 win over the Yankees on Thursday before dropping a 4-1 decision to the Braves on Friday and a tight 3-2 game to the Orioles on Saturday. Sunday’s matchup with the Phillies provided some late drama, as the Twins walked it off in a 7-6 victory.
The results themselves aren’t the main focus this time of year. Early March is more about individual progress, building innings, and seeing which players are starting to separate themselves as camp moves along.
With that in mind, here’s the latest temperature check from the past few days of Twins spring action.
Who’s Hot? 🔥
Ober finally made his spring debut on Friday, and it couldn’t have gone much smoother. The right-hander tossed two scoreless innings without allowing a baserunner, giving the Twins exactly what they were hoping for in his first outing of camp. His fastball averaged around 90 mph, which is right in line with expectations. Ober has never been a power arm, typically working in the low 90s while relying on command and deception to keep hitters off balance. The biggest takeaway here is simply that he’s healthy and back on the mound, and his first appearance of the spring was a clean one.
The Twins’ starting shortstop put together a strong weekend at the plate. He went 3-for-6, including a triple and a double, and four of the five balls he put in play were classified as hard contact. For a player who hasn’t quite lived up to the early hype surrounding his prospect status yet, this is an encouraging sign. When Lee is driving the ball with authority like this, it’s a glimpse of the offensive impact the Twins believed he could provide when they drafted him.
Through three spring starts, Abel continues to look like one of the most dominant pitchers in camp. In his latest outing, he threw four scoreless innings while allowing just two hits and no walks. That now gives him 10 innings this spring without issuing a free pass, to go along with 13 strikeouts. He didn’t rack up quite as many whiffs as he did in his first couple of appearances, but that was largely because Baltimore’s hitters were aggressively swinging early in counts as Abel attacked the zone with fastballs. He still consistently ran his heater up to 98 mph and needed just 41 pitches to get through four innings, 30 of which were strikes. Considering he was facing several Orioles regulars, it was another impressive showing and further evidence that Abel is making a strong case for a spot in the Twins’ rotation.
Outman has quietly put together a strong stretch over the past few days. Since Thursday, he’s gone 3-for-7 with a home run and three stolen bases, showing off both his power and athleticism. A couple of his batted balls have come off the bat at 100 mph or harder, highlighting the kind of impact contact he’s capable of when he’s locked in. With several outfielders competing for limited spots on the Opening Day roster, performances like this keep Outman firmly in the mix.
Who’s Not? 🧊
It’s been a rough spring for Topa, and that continued Sunday when he squandered a Twins lead against Philadelphia. He allowed four runs on three hits and a hit-by-pitch, and the damage came against a Phillies lineup made up mostly of backups rather than regulars. Through his appearances this spring, Topa’s ERA now sits north of 30, which obviously isn’t the kind of line you want to see this late into camp. There’s still time for him to turn things around, but each tough outing makes the battle for a bullpen spot a little more difficult.
After looking electric in his first outing of the spring, things haven’t gone nearly as smoothly since for Rojas. On Friday against Atlanta, he was charged with the loss after allowing four earned runs across 2 ⅔ innings. He gave up five hits while striking out three, and while his changeup generated plenty of whiffs, his fastball and cutter caught too much of the plate, and hitters made him pay. The positive takeaway is that his command was solid; he threw 35 of his 50 pitches for strikes and didn’t walk a batter. The issue right now isn’t finding the zone, but rather leaving too many pitches over the heart of it.
It wasn’t the strongest weekend at the plate for Lewis, who went 0-for-6 with a pair of strikeouts. Most importantly, he’s healthy and on the field, which remains the top priority at this stage of the spring. Still, the quality of contact wasn’t there in this small sample. None of the balls he put in play left the infield, and only one was hit particularly hard. Both strikeouts also came on three pitches. It’s far too early to read much into a couple of quiet games, but it wasn’t Lewis’ most productive stretch offensively.
It’s still early in camp, and none of these performances lock anyone into or out of a role. Spring training is about adjustments, building rhythm, and getting ready for the long season ahead. But as the innings start to pile up, the early trends are beginning to come into focus.