The beginning of the Twins’ season hasn’t gone according to plan. But the bullpen, despite missing three critical arms to begin the season, has been a bright spot.

Twins’ relievers had a collective 2.71 earned-run average entering Friday night, which was fifth in the major leagues. Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart have slid into the highest leverage roles, and Steven Okert has seen some late-inning work, as well.

And now, the group is close to welcoming back its top arm: closer Jhoan Duran.

“I think that it does a lot of good things for our team and our bullpen,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It pushes guys into some other roles and our bullpen gets even thicker at that point.”

Duran threw a 21-pitch live bullpen session on Friday at Target Field, facing teammates Jair Camargo and Jose Miranda. It was the first time he has thrown live as the Twins have built him back up from his oblique strain, which he suffered in March while throwing warm-up pitches in Fort Myers, Florida.

“I woke up today and I (had) a lot of energy today like my kid,” Duran said of his excitement to face hitters.

Duran said he feels good and strong and, most importantly, pain free.

The Twins will send him out on a rehab assignment in the coming days, but Baldelli was not sure yet of the timing specifics on Friday. The manager said he thought Duran would like get “a couple” rehab outings. That could put the closer on track to return sometime next week, a boost for the entire group.

“He was supposed to throw 20 and he wanted an extra one, so it tells you he is feeling good. His stuff was normal,” Baldelli said. “He threw the ball around the zone the way you would want him to. He looked like himself. He looked very comfortable and he looked like someone who is just about ready to go face some hitters in some real games.”

Kepler close to return

While the Twins are getting closer to Duran rejoining them, a return for Max Kepler is even more imminent.

Kepler, who is on the injured list with a knee contusion, began a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Saints on Thursday in Indianapolis. He started again on Saturday, playing the outfield for the first time. Baldelli said it’s possible that the right fielder, who was injured on Opening Day when he fouled a ball off his knee, could come back as soon as Sunday or Monday.

“We’ll make a determination after he gets through his game in the outfield just where he’s at and we’ll make a call,” Baldelli said. “I think it’s closle. I need him to tell us he’s ready before we can make any calls, though.”

Briefly

Reliever Josh Staumont, who was rehabbing from a left calf strain with the Triple-A Saints, has wrapped up his rehab assignment and been optioned to St. Paul. … Bailey Ober will get the start on Saturday against the Tigers. Ober threw six scoreless innings against the Tigers last weekend. …  David McCarty, who was drafted No. 3 overall by the Twins in 1991 and went on to have an 11-year major league career, the first three seasons in Minnesota, died Friday at 54. The cause of death was a “cardiac event” according to the Boston Red Sox, with whom McCarty won a World Series title in 2004.

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ESPN’s Kevin Weekes gives analysis of NHL games, but on Thursday he turned his attention to an assault in downtown St. Paul that involved a man being repeatedly whipped.

Weekes, who was in town for the Wild’s season finale at Xcel Energy Center, recorded the assault with his cellphone from his 16th-floor hotel room at the InterContinental Riverfront.

“Well, we’ve got a situation here in Minnesota,” Weekes says in a 2-minute video he posted on the social media app X, formerly Twitter, just after 1:30 p.m. “Breaking News Not Hockey,” reads the post, which has been viewed more than 1.3 million times as of Friday night.

In the video, one man is seen striking the other man several times with the whip along the edge of the Kellogg Mall Park at Kellogg Boulevard and Wabasha Street. The victim tries to dodge the whips while screaming for help.

After he is whipped a third time, Weekes remarks how no one is helping.

“I’m up in the room. I’m on the 16th floor,” he says. “There’s not much I can do. That guy in the white shirt … that’s not nunchucks, that’s a whip! Damn!”

The video shows the man with the whip grabbing his bike before returning and continuing the assault.

“He’s coming back!” Weekes says. “Damn! This is crazy!”

**Breaking News Not Hockey**
Just minding my business up in the room on 16th floor, all of a sudden I hear screaming, here’s the scene live – from
St.Paul Minnesota folks . #HockeyTwitter #HockeyX pic.twitter.com/RShoboDVdI

— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) April 18, 2024

After the final “lash,” as Weekes describes it, the man with the whip rides away on his bike. Weekes then asks, “What happened to Minnesota Nice? Wow!”

The video ends with the victim slumped over while sitting on the edge of a concrete planter. “Oh man,” Weekes says, as he zooms in on him.

St. Paul police spokeswoman Alyssa Arcand said Friday that officers were sent to the area just before 1:30 p.m. on a report of two men fighting, with the 911 caller reporting that one man was being whipped. The suspect was gone when officers arrived and the victim was uncooperative, Arcand said.

Police are aware of Weekes’ video and are “sharing the description of the suspect with our officers,” Arcand said.

“While this was a shocking and unusual incident for St. Paul, this was an isolated incident that we are actively investigating,” she said. “We encourage anyone with information about this incident to contact us at 651-291-1111.”

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The University of St. Thomas has informed employees it will lay off 26 staff members and keep 30 open positions unfilled, among more cost-cutting decisions to come, as it seeks to narrow a $10.5 million budget gap for the fiscal year beginning on July 1.

Rob Vischer, University of St. Thomas President, welcomes Lee and Penny Anderson to the podium as they announce the couple’s $75 million gift to the St. Paul school during a news conference in the Anderson Student Center on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2022. The largest-ever donation to any university in Minnesota will go toward design and construction of a shared Division I hockey and basketball facility. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

No academic programs or faculty positions were among the announced cuts.

University President Rob Vischer informed faculty and staff of the budget challenges in a letter this week and held a “budget town hall” on Friday at the O’Shaughnessy Education Center Auditorium in St. Paul. St. Thomas is Minnesota’s largest private university and one of the largest Catholic universities in the nation.

A spokesman for St. Thomas released a written statement Friday noting that while overall student enrollment has remained strong, St. Thomas was not immune to the “headwinds affecting all of higher education.” The eliminated staff positions represent less than 2% of the university’s roughly 1,500 employees, according to the statement, and an emphasis on small class sizes would be preserved.

Officials said across the industry, fewer students are enrolling in summer or “J-term” classes, more students are graduating early and the graduate school market has slowed. As more students enroll with increased financial need, some schools are competing by aggressively discounting tuition. Overall, tuition revenue at St. Thomas has declined over the past three years at a time of rising labor and utility costs, according to Vischer’s communication to faculty and staff.

The university has taken several steps to mitigate expenses, such as dipping into restricted funds and requesting an extra year of funding from a “quasi-endowment” fund to cover expenses related to its sports teams being recently elevated to NCAA Division I athletics. An employee benefits package will cut tuition remission for spouses to 50%, and pay raises in 2025 will arrive in lump-sum increases.

No academic programs are being eliminated, but Vischer’s letter indicated that St. Thomas would be “regularly reviewing our academic portfolio to determine if programs should be added or phased out.”

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A lot of ink has been spent on the Wild’s myriad injuries this season, all of which played a part in the team missing the postseason for just the second time in 12 seasons.

But on the day the players cleaned out their lockers and went through their exit interviews, the team’s injury issues were mostly on the back burner. The primary message from everyone involved — from the players to general manager Bill Guerin — was that the team just didn’t play well enough.

That, of course, was easy to see for anyone who paid attention to Minnesota’s NHL team this season. What was most interesting were the internal theories about why the team stumbled.

“I’ve always said in years past how much I would hate to play against us,” veteran forward Ryan Hartman said. “And this year, I don’t know if I could have said the same thing about our group and how sometimes we approached games.”

The team surrendered too many leads, and became fragile when opponents scored on them early, which happened often during a 5-10-4 start that cost coach Dean Evason his job. The penalty kill struggled all season, finishing third worst in the NHL. A handful of veteran players had bad seasons.

And while the Wild rebounded under new coach John Hynes — and in fact played winning hockey after Nov. 28 — they were never able to win when they were within spitting distance of an elusive playoff spot.

The Wild started the season aiming to win a first-round playoff series for the first time since 2015 — or getting over the hump

“We never got to the hump,” Guerin noted.

Instead, one loss spilled into two, two into three and three into a couple of serious skids from which the team was never able to fully recover.

“It felt like early on in games, we let up a lot of goals right away early in games, and I think mentally it fatigued us,” veteran wing Marcus Foligno said. “It felt like we were coming from behind and trying to play it from behind the entire game, and then the puck would drop and then you look back up and it was already one for them.

“That happened a lot, and too often early on, probably the first 20 games for this team. You can’t just play hockey like that. You’ve gotta be able to jump on teams and be that team that can play with leads, and we rarely did that. So, I think that mentally exhausted us. And then it got tougher, and practices get tighter, practices get more serious, and it just becomes a little bit harder at the rink and it’s uncomfortable.”

Foligno, of course, was one of many key contributors to miss substantial time because of injuries this season. The alternate captain played only 55 games and underwent season-ending surgery this month to repair core muscles. Captain Jared Spurgeon played in only 16 games before season-ending surgery on his back and hips.

Matt Boldy (shoulder) and Freddy Geadreau (ribs) missed games early, and Mats Zuccarello missed 10 games because of injuries. And after leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov suffered broken ribs in a Dec. 30 loss at Winnipeg, the Wild lost 8 of 9, erasing the gains they had made after Hynes joined the team.

Yet only Kaprizov pointed to injuries as the team’s downfall, and that was likely because he was the team’s best player for a fourth straight year — 46 goals and 97 points — and unwilling to throw anyone under a bus.

“Good teams don’t lose two in a row, and they don’t lose three in a row. They don’t let it slide like that,” Hartman said. “It happened too much. We gave up leads throughout this year. That definitely needs to be better.”

Guerin was pleased to hear it because, he said, injuries were a factor, but not the ultimate reason Minnesota missed the playoffs.

“When I hear that our players say that we were mentally fragile, I would agree with them,” the GM said. “And if they said that they weren’t competitive enough in the big games, … I would agree. We have to find our swagger again.”

The question is, how?

The 2024-25 roster is close to locked in because of long-term veteran contracts, and a looming $14.7 million salary cap hit — the remnant of buying out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in 2021 — leaves the team with few options in free agency.

Health is one answer, but it’s always a crapshoot — and almost always an issue for every NHL team. The other is improvement. A better start. Better seasons from underperforming veterans. The team’s first training camp under Hynes. More fortitude.

And, Hartman said, a return to the identity the team has claimed, in good years and bad, for most of its 24 NHL seasons.

“I think there’s always another level that you can bring, and I think we do have that in our room,” Hartman said. “Obviously, no years are the same. Obviously things are going to look different each and every year. But we need to be a team that no one wants to play against.”

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