Twins to acquire righty Dean Kremer from Orioles

Matthews heads back to the minors with veteran Dean Kremer joining Minnesota’s rotation after being acquired from the Orioles in a trade on Friday night. The 26-year-old righty posted a career-high 10 strikeouts and allowed three runs over five innings against the Mariners on Friday night. There’s a chance injuries or ineffectiveness bring him back to the big leagues in a couple weeks, but there simply isn’t a spot for him as the Twins make a legitimate playoff push.

The Twins definitely needed rotation depth, but Kremer has struggled to a 6.50 ERA in his seven starts this year, and while he’s under control for 2027, he seems like a non-tender candidate right now. Maybe he’ll bounce back — he was typically an average starter or a little better each season from 2022 through 2025 — but he’s never been all that exciting with his middling velocity and strikeout numbers. The Orioles could replace him with Trey Gibson or Cade Povich for now, and they should get Chris Bassitt back sometime in August. Zebby Matthews might be bumped from the Twins’ rotation in order to open up a spot.

Kremer gave up a pair of homers, bringing his total surrendered to 12 in 36 innings this season. He’s allowed 21 runs in 25 innings in his five starts since coming off the injured list, and he’s 1-4 with a 6.50 ERA in seven starts overall. If the Orioles can bring in a starter before the deadline, it’s very obvious that it’s Kremer who is going to be bumped from the rotation.

Four of the runs came right away in the first. The Orioles never made up that deficit, but at least Kremer was able to settle down and get through six with the team playing two games today. Kremer finished up with five strikeouts and one walk. He allowed eight hits, five of which came in the first. He is 1-2 with a 5.57 ERA in four starts since returning from a quad strain, and he figures to next pitch Monday or Tuesday in Detroit.

Kremer was inefficient in this short start and struggled to find the zone with any pitch besides his sinker. Something interesting though, he practically threw all five of his pitches the exact same amount: 18 sinkers, 17 splitters, 17 four-seam fastballs, 16 cutters, and 15 curveballs. It made sense to bounce around so evenly too because again, he couldn’t really command any of them. He’ll look to have a better start next time out against the Red Sox in Boston.

The 30-year-old right-hander will get the ball for the O’s in their second half opener. Injuries limited him to just four starts in the first half where he posted a 4.09 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and a 24/4 K/BB ratio over 22 innings of work. Trevor Rogers will follow on Saturday with Kyle Bradish getting the ball in Sunday’s series finale.

The last three homers came in a four-batter span in the fifth. Of the four, two actually came on balls that fell just short of being hard-hit; Pete Crow-Armstrong’s first homer left the bat at 94.2 mph, and Michael Conforto’s checked in at 94.5 mph. Those probably weren’t homers a month ago. Kremer is 1-2 with a 4.09 ERA in four starts. Between his two outings in April and his two since coming off the IL on July 1, he’s given up nine homers so far but only 10 earned runs. Unless the baseball starts traveling more like it did in April, he’s not going to be a mixed-league option in the second half.

Kremer allowed four hits and one walk. He gave up a homer to Sam Antonacci on the second pitch of the game but held Chicago scoreless after that. This was only his third start of the year after a quad injury kept him sidelined since late April. He’s pitched well in the small sample and now has a 20:3 K/BB ratio in 17 innings. His next start lines up at home against the Cubs.

It was reported earlier in the day that Kremer would start today against the White Sox so now the move is official. We would still avoid him in this start outside of AL-only formats

Kremer has been out since late April with a quad injury, so the Orioles will need to make some roster moves before they activate him off the 60-day injured list. Kremer looked good in his last rehab outing, striking out eight over 6 2/3 scoreless innings for Triple-A Norfolk. He may eventually have streaming upside in deeper formats, but we’d leave him on the waiver wire outside of AL-only leagues for now.