Twins intend to push young starters called up to fill in major league rotation

WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIF. - With Pablo López on the injured list for the next couple of months, some combination of David Festa, Zebby Matthews and Simeon Woods Richardson figure to become fixtures in the Twins rotation. And Rocco Baldelli wants something in particular from them.

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“When your starters can pitch you into the sixth inning and beyond, it does a lot of things to help a team,” the Twins manager said. “When you don’t have Pablo going into the sixth inning and seventh inning, you’re going to have to make up those innings somewhere.”

And he doesn’t want all of them going to the bullpen, which already carries one of the dozen heaviest workloads in the majors.

But that’s not how they have used their youngest pitchers. Festa has started 14 big-league games and Matthews 13, and each pitcher has pitched more than five innings only once. Woods Richardson, currently at Class AAA St. Paul, has more experience with 36 career starts, but even he has completed six innings only seven times, all last season.

They will be asked to pitch the sixth or even the seventh innings more often, Badlelli said.

“We’ll obviously monitor and balance it, but there will be times where we’re going to do it and we’re going to need to do it and we’re going to be excited to do it,” Baldelli said. “Our pen will be able to use the help with that as time goes on. Even if our starters are giving us good length, it still will benefit us to get more.“

Between the Athletics and the Class AAA River Cats, the ballpark will play host to 156 games this season. It’s already showing some wear, the Twins said.

“Worst batter’s box I’ve ever set foot in,” Ty France said. “It was like hitting on concrete.”

It was even worse for shortstop Carlos Correa, who sat out the final two games vs. the A’s because his back hurt — a condition he attributes to the playing surface in the park. The batter’s box was so hard, he said, he couldn’t swing without his feet slipping on the surface.

“Every swing that I slip at the plate, I feel my back compensating to stabilize me throughout the motion. It’s [caused] discomfort in my middle back and I don’t want to make it worse, where I miss months of the season [for] two games,” Correa said Wednesday. “It’s been getting worse every day. I swing in the cage and I feel great. I don’t feel anything. Then after two at-bats, it’s flaring up.”

Joe Ryan even speculated that a subpar mound — “It’s a rock out there,” he said — might have contributed to López’s shoulder injury.

• Festa’s return to the Twins means there are only three Twins pitchers on the 40-man roster currently at St. Paul: righthanders Woods Richardson, Travis Adams and Marco Raya. The 22-year-old Raya started Thursday night against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at CHS Field but gave up seven runs on six hits and two walks in 3⅓ innings, putting his ERA at 10.46 in 10 starts this season. The RailRiders scored three runs in the sixth to break a 7-7 tie, and beat the Saints 11-8.