Twins quietly make a roster change ahead of doubleheader with Tigers

For the second time in five days the Minnesota Twins saw a game get rained out and rescheduled. 

Sunday’s game against Cleveland was postponed, with a doubleheader scheduled for August 9th. Four days later the season opener against the Detroit Tigers was postponed as well, but the turnaround is much more aggressive.

Thursdays game was folded into a doubleheader on Saturday. What this mostly did was throw off the pitching rotation vibe, as Minnesota opted to simply bump things back rather than skip anyone’s starts. That means Pablo Lopez, who was scheduled to pitch on Thursday, will be on the mound Friday with Joe Ryan still scheduled to pitch Saturday night.

As a result the Twins needed to make a roster move and called up Simeon Woods Richardson to fill a bonus 27th slot on the roster. Not only is he getting called up, but he’s expected to start the first game on Saturday.

Twins call up Simeon Woods Richardson for doubleheader with Tigers

This is the third time we’ll see Woods Richardson on the MLB roster, and everyone is hoping things will go better this time around.

He’s made appearances in each of the last two seasons but he hasn’t stuck around in any manful capacity. His stuff in 2022 was decent, pitching five innings and finishing his only major league start with a 3.60 ERA. He fell on harder times last season, allowing five runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings. 

To be fair it was a similarly wonky turnaround for Woods Richardson, as he needed to get called up to account for an injury to Kenta Maeda and was featured in a relief role in a brutal loss against the Nationals.

Everything in that game was bad, but Woods Richardson was particularly disheartening. Minnesota acquired him as part of the Jose Berrios with Toronto back in 2021 and he hasn't yet caught on the way fans had hoped. He now has a chance to turn things around and leave a lasting impression that helps get him into the mix further down the road.

Austin Martin was also acquired from the Blue Jays and was called up after Royce Lewis went down with a right quad strain. Saturday will be the first time that both players in that trade are on the Twins' active roster at the same time.

The good -- or at least promising -- news is that Woods Richardson started to look good in Spring Training, even if he was edged out of the final roster. With all of the pitching depth issues the Twins have experienced this year, he’s the only healthy non-MLB arm on the 40-man roster and this could be an audition to work his way into either the rotation or the bullpen moving forward.

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