4 pitchers Twins could call up if Louie Varland and Bailey Ober struggle

After an incredible start to the season, things have taken a bit of a step back for the Minnesota Twins. Perhaps its a simple regression to the mean, but the hot start has experienced turbulence and there have been more than a few rough patches -- specifically for pitching.

Minnesota's starting rotation is among the very best in all of baseball, but things start to get a little shaky beyond that. The Twins bullpen started the year strong, but also started the season against the Kansas City Royals. That's hardly a litmus test worth reading into, and since then the results have shown there's still work to be done.

The injury bug has also bitten the Twins more than a few times this season, and the starting rotation is not immune. Both Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle were placed on the injured list and the Twins are being forced to get creative in replacing them.

As nerve-wracking a situation as it is, it also presents an opportunity to stress test some of the team's better pitching prospects in the Bigs.

Both Louie Varland and Bailey Ober got the call to actually replace Mahle and Maeda in the rotation, but the buck shouldn't stop with them.

If either of them struggles, the Twins have a few different options in the minors they can lean on to both fill the gap and also see what they have in some top prospects.

Simeon Woods Richardson, RHP

We've already gotten a glimpse of Simeon Woods Richardson at the MLB level this season, but he left a lot to be desired in the very small sample size we saw.

To be fair, he wasn't put in the best spot to make his season debut either in the game itself or the situation surrounding his call-up. Woods Richardson came in to relieve Pablo Lopez in a horrible game against the Nationals where he was already down 5-1 and the Twins were just off all game long. He ended up pitching 4.2 innings and giving up five earned runs but also struck out five batters.

SItuationally, SWR was called up from Triple-A St. Paul more out of necessity than anything else. Minnesota had just returned from a stint in Boston that cost them Kenta Maeda and saw both Jovani Moran and Emilio Pagan get rocked by the Red Sox.

Don't judge him on that one start alone, though. He posted a 2.21 ERA in 100 innings pitched and had a fantastic .143 batting average on balls in play back in 2022. He's been one of the Twins top pitching prospects ever since he was acquired back in 2021 in the Jose Berrios trade, and the little we've seen of him at the Major League level hasn't been enough to make a determination on how he'll pan out.

If Ober or Varland struggle, there might not be any harm in calling him up to be a fifth starter and giving him some reps that could end up paying off down the road.

José De León, RHP

Some of the names that will be tossed out are probably familiar to Twins fans, but others might seem like more drastic options to lean on.

José De León might fall under the latter category, through no real fault of his own.

De León has been pretty decent with the Saints this season, posting a 3.27 ERA in eight games and three starts, with a 1.44 WHIP. He's worked 22 innings in total so far, It was his performance in the World Baseball Classic that piqued some interest around Twins Territory.

Pitching for Puerto Rico he worked 5.1 innings, striking out ten batters without giving up a single hit. He also had a pretty great performance in the Puerto Rican Winter League where he posted a 3.75 strikeouts-to-walks ratio in almost 47.2 innings pitched.

That's who the Twins are hoping they'll get if they call him up, but chances are it'll be somewhere in the middle of the two sample sizes we have for him.

One thing working against De León getting the call is that he's not on the Twins 40-man roster. Adding him to help the rotation would mean making DFA'ing someone, and while there are certainly candidates it's tough to see the Twins moving off someone just to see if De León has what it takes.

It would be a gamble, but it all comes down to how desperate the team is to plug holes while Maeda and Mahle are out.

Brent Headrick, LHP

Like Woods Richardson, we've seen Brent Headrick with the Twins this season, and it seems likely that we'll see him again. He was called up to support the bullpen after a rocky start to the year, and in 8.1 innings has managed a 3.24 ERA with 12 stirkeouts and a 3.00 SO/W.

He was optioned at the end of April so that Josh Winder could be activated and called up after starting the year on the IL. The move really wasn't indicative of how Headrick had performed on the mound, rather he was caught in a wird revolving door situation with Twins pitchers as the team tries to figure out how to navigate the current ongoing conundruum.

When he was up with the Twins, Headrick was just in a relief role, but there's a world in which he's a fifth starter for Minnesota. The sample size out of the bullpen was encouraging and it seems to suggest that he can stretch that production into what the Twins would need out of him in a start.

Even if he doesn't fill in as rotational help, it doesn't seem like the worst idea in the world to have Headrick as an option out of the bullpen given the current state of things.