FORT MYERS, Fla. — A new season always brings a renewed sense of hope and promise. Perhaps no one is more ready for that fresh start, to put 2025 well behind him, than Bailey Ober.
Ober hurt his hip during spring training last year. He got clobbered in his first start of the season, yielding eight runs in 2 2/3 innings. He was mostly effective pitching through the injury in the early months of the season, even with diminished velocity. Then came June, a frustrating month during which Ober allowed 30 runs in 30 innings pitched and gave up 14 home runs, after which he decided it was time for a break to let his hip heal over the next month.
As he entered the offseason, Ober put all his attention into getting healthy and cleaning up his mechanics. He is pleased with the results.
“(I’m) physically feeling good,” he said. “I’m feeling faster, stronger. Now, it’s just time to go out there and do it.”
Ober split his time between his home in North Carolina and Sarasota, working with his trainer, before coming down to Fort Myers a couple of weeks before camp began. The focus of his work was undoing bad habits he had created last season as his body compensated while he tried to pitch through injury.
“A lot of that is like structure, position on the mound, not necessarily letting my chest collapse in front of me and staying tall, using my length and my advantages that I have naturally,” he said.
In retrospect, he admits, he could have done things differently last season. Perhaps he should have shut things down earlier to let his body heal.
“You kind of pick on up on stuff and you have more awareness of how you would like to approach things, how you would like to handle different situations,” Ober said. “That’s definitely an aspect I learned a little bit more of last year on the not so good side that I didn’t want to go through.”
With an offseason of work behind him, the Twins are counting on Ober to be an important member of their rotation again.
A return to form for Ober has become even more important in recent days with the Twins losing Pablo López for the season. The Twins have a number of starters in camp vying for a rotation spot and with López now headed for a year of rehab, Ober expects himself and Joe Ryan to step into even more of a leadership role within the rotation.
But perhaps most important, the Twins are simply looking for Ober to get back to who he was in past years: a pillar of consistency. And last season’s results have given him extra incentive to do just that.
“It’s always in the back of your mind and adds a little bit of a chip on your shoulder when all you’re doing is workouts,” he said. “Obviously you don’t want to repeat last year. It’s in the back of your mind, but I’m not dwelling too much on it. It’s a little bit of extra motivation to get back to knowing what I can do.”
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