DETROIT -- Even when he’s going well, Bailey Ober is sometimes prone to give up home runs. He throws strikes and doesn’t throw terribly hard, and that combination means that sometimes the ball goes out of the park.
Ober is not currently going well, however. And his occasional proclivity to allow the long ball has given way to a stretch of allowing far too many homers, which has become a very real problem for him and the Twins. The right-hander, who has been a reliable, steady presence for just about the entire time he’s been on the roster, is in a deep rut. And home runs are the biggest culprit.
Ober was reached for four more on Saturday afternoon in a 10-5 loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park, part of a seven-run, 11-hit barrage that saw his June funk deepen. He finished the month with a 9.00 ERA in five starts. He was taken deep 14 times, a new franchise record for any month and the third-highest total in Major League history, behind only the Senators' Pedro Ramos in 1957 and the Phillies' Kid Carsey in 1894.
“Obviously the results haven’t been what we’re looking for,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “The homers are obviously an issue. If we knew exactly what was going on, if it was one particular thing, it would be a little easier to identify. But we’re going to get back to working on it and spend a lot of time on it.”
What is challenging is that there is not one clear answer. There’s no pitch on which Ober is consistently being beaten. In fact, the four homers he permitted on Saturday came on four different pitches: four-seam fastball, slider, sweeper and changeup.
“I wish I knew,” Ober said. “We’re looking at everything.”
His velocity remains down from previous seasons, as do his movement and spin, but those trends are not noticeably more pronounced in June than they were earlier this season, when he was pitching well.
Ober has dealt with some issues in his left hip at times through the season, but the club does not believe his struggles are explicitly health-related. So, they will continue trying to solve the vexing mystery.
One challenge is that the Twins' options are somewhat limited if they want to try to give Ober a break or a different look. They have two starting pitchers on the injured list, Pablo López and Zebby Matthews, which has eroded their Minor League pitching depth. No. 9 prospect Andrew Morris, who theoretically would be the first call if they had another need for a starter, is also currently on the IL.
Right-hander Travis Adams, the organization’s No. 21 prospect who has pitched in a hybrid short starter/long reliever role this season, would most likely get the call if the Twins elected to give someone else an opportunity for any period of time.
It would be difficult to simply skip Ober for a start, because the Twins play on six consecutive days following a Monday off-day. So at a minimum, if they wanted to look at an option like that, they would have to find an alternative rather than just going with a four-man rotation for a spell.
On Saturday, they weren’t thinking that far ahead just yet.
“Obviously we’ll talk to Bailey, like we do with every guy,” Baldelli said. “See how they come out of their outing. We assess everything. But we’ve made a number of small adjustments along the way, and we have to keep looking for different adjustments to make. And that’s 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’t, but you continue to look, and you find it.”
The belief remains that one way or another, Ober will get sorted out.
“We still trust in that guy and believe that guy is in there,” said catcher Ryan Jeffers. “Yeah, it's frustrating, and it's frustrating for us playing behind him. We want to see him succeed. We need to see him succeed. But I don't think anybody blames him. He knows he has to be better. There are a lot of things in this game where you know you've got to play better. But, we're not going to sit there and say, 'It's all Bailey.' He's been really good for us for a long time.”