ST. LOUIS — There were an eerie number of similarities on Sunday to Bailey Ober’s first start of the 2024 season. Both starts came during the third game of the season, on a Sunday in the state of Missouri. And in each, Ober was rocked for eight runs.
If the rest of Ober’s upcoming turns out similar to last year’s campaign, it would lessen some of the sting of Sunday’s blowup outing.
Ober was behind from the get-go, issuing a pair of walks and a wild pitch in the first inning. The second inning started with a single, double and three-run home run and things really blew up in the third inning of the Twins’ 9-2 loss to St. Louis on Sunday at Busch Stadium.
After laboring through each of the first two innings, Ober allowed five straight hits to begin the third, the last of which was a Pedro Pagés three-run home run, the second of those he had given up in the game.
His day ended shortly after, when he made way for long reliever Randy Dobnak after just 2 2/3 innings pitched. In addition to struggling with location, Ober’s velocity was down, as it had been during spring training. That, he said this spring, was from working through kinks in his delivery as he tried to get his timing down.
Ober’s performance put the Twins in a hole from which they could not recover. The Twins got their first lead of the season in the first inning when Byron Buxton brought home Matt Wallner with a single to left, but it was short lived, lasting until just the bottom of the second.
Their only other run in the game came in the fourth inning when Willi Castro, off to a hot start at the plate, slugged a solo home run. The Twins finished with just five hits in the game, which was delayed by nearly an hour as a storm passed through the St. Louis area.
Dobnak, who came on in relief of Ober before the rain delay, continued on after, throwing 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball and helping preserve the Twins’ bullpen.
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