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Simeon Woods Richardson’s last three starts have been dreadful. He’s walked more than he’s struck out; he hasn’t gone more than 4 ⅔ innings in any outing; and the velocity that occasionally shot up to the mid-90s is back in the gutters. Just one fastball over this recent stretch crossed the 95-MPH threshold. The Twins only won one of those games.
To some degree, Woods Richardson walked a thin line even when the going was good; his xERA, FIP, and xFIP—which are real stats, not leftover bureaucracies from Roosevelt’s New Deal—all treated him as more of an ordinary hurler, not the mid-to-low 3s ERA stud as which he masqueraded. He wasn’t one for swings and misses, and walked batters at an average rate. The batted-ball data was fine. Maybe there was some nebulous force guiding his success, but all signs pointed toward a decent dose of good fortune driving his best months, always ready to rescind its blessings at the drop of a pop-up or the strike of a pebble. So it goes.
But that downturn—be it regression or fatigue—puts the Twins in an awkward position. They’ve relied heavily on their youngster this year—likely far more than they wished—and this stumble mere steps before the end of the marathon stretches their already thin rotation to deli pastrami levels. They can’t do much more than hope he can crawl across the finish line, because the alternative is more of the 2024 Louie Varland experience. Hey, I guess Rich Hill is available again.
Of course, that depth was only drained thanks to Joe Ryan’s injury, which in turn accentuated the foolishness of Minnesota’s financial overlords to restrict their front office at the trade deadline, but opening that can of worms only adds to the chorus of void-screaming that accomplishes nothing. Your time would be better spent recording an audiobook for your deaf neighbor.
For the record, as far as Woods Richardson’s performance goes, I don’t see him falling off and succumbing to regression, as much as a young pitcher breaking down near the end of the heftiest workload he has had to face as a pro. His previous career high, set last year, was 118 ⅓ innings; he’s at 138 ⅓ so far in 2024. That’ll take a toll on any 23-year-old.
The good news is that this is mainly a regular-season issue, which is becoming an ever-dwindling facet to strategize for. The postseason—which the Twins are still likely to make, despite their recent lethargic play—is for two starters and a cloud of dust, exactly the model Minnesota is perfectly built for. Pablo López and Bailey Ober are solid first options; who cares about the rest? The Rangers just won the World Series on the backs of Nathan Eovaldi, Jordan Montgomery, and a Voltron effort of whatever scraps and crumbs they could find sitting around. If you’re ever worried about Game 3, then you have other issues to solve.
Woods Richardson isn’t the main reason for Minnesota’s stall in performance, but he is one of them. Injury woes and an unreasonable payroll burden thrust the righty into the spotlight, and those same forces will keep him there, despite his fall-off. It’s symbolic, really: the Twins' young starting rotation—once a force of good—is now molding from the inside, morphing into a dilapidated version of itself with no immediate remedy. All we can do is hope the damage isn’t too great.
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