Simeon

Woods Richardson

He struck out two and walked three in the 78-pitch effort. Woods Richardson was tagged for a two-run homer by Yandy Díaz in the third, putting Tampa Bay up 4-0 at the time. The right-hander hasn’t shown much ability to miss bats this year, and his role in the rotation could be in jeopardy depending on how quickly Mick Abel (elbow) returns. As it stands, Woods Richardson is lined up to face his former team, the Blue Jays, next time out.

Things looked like they could’ve spun out of control early for Woods-Richardson when Francisco Lindor tattooed a three-run homer into the upper deck in the third inning. Yet, despite putting a runner on in four of five innings, Woods-Richardson stopped the bleeding right there. He still has an unsightly 5.96 ERA and poor 14:9 strikeout to walk ratio over 25 2/3 innings so far this season. He’s lined up to face the Rays in Tampa Bay next time out.

With Mick Abel (elbow) landing on the injured list, Woods Richardson will have his start bumped up a day. As of now, the Twins have no starting pitcher listed for Wednesday, but one of Kendrys Rojas or Connor Prielipp, the Twins’ 2025 Minor League Pitcher of the Year, could be an option.

Not that it did him any good, but Woods Richardson had great velocity today. He had averaged 92.1 mph with his fastball this season, down from 93.2 mph last year, but he was up to 94.2 mph today. He only wound up with four whiffs and a 21-percent CSW, but he was pretty unlucky to give up seven runs. Five came in a third inning that started with an infield single. With the bases loaded and none out, Masataka Yoshida hit a double play ball that second baseman Luke Keaschall bobbled and then threw wildly to first base on for a double error. After running down the ball, Josh Bell compounded the problem by throwing home well too late to get Roman Anthony when he should have easily had Yoshida running to second. Trevor Story followed with a three-run homer. In all, Woods Richardson allowed four hits on balls hit softer than 80 mph. The loss makes him 0-3 with a 6.10 ERA, but his rotation spot should be safe for now, especially with Zebby Matthews struggling in Triple-A. The Twins do have off days Thursday and Monday, so they could push him back from his next scheduled start, which would be next Wednesday against the Mets.

After holding the Blue Jays scoreless through the first three innings, Woods Richardson ran into trouble in the fourth. The righty allowed back-to-back doubles to Vladdy Jr. and Jesús Sánchez to start the inning, and after retiring Kazuma Okamoto on a pop up, surrendered a third double to Davis Schneider, who drove in the Jays’ second run of the inning. Andrés Giménez would follow things up with an RBI single to drive in Schneider to cut the Twins’ lead to 4-3, but it was Brandon Valenzuela, whose first career homer would give the Jays the lead. Richardson would not return in the fifth inning, as Friday marked his shortest and worst outing of the season. He’ll hope for better in his next start on Wednesday at home against the Red Sox.

Woods Richardson got 20 outs for the second time in 53 career starts; he recorded 21 to get through seven against the Guardians on Aug. 10, 2024. Aside from the unusual length, it was a pretty typical Woods Richardson outing. He had four strikeouts and six whiffs on 35 swings, finishing with a 25 percent CSW. He’ll next face his previous organization in Toronto on Friday.

He gave up five hits, walked one and struck out two. Woods Richardson has shown himself over the last two years to be perfectly competent at pitching five innings at a time, but he just hasn’t demonstrated much upside beyond that, and given that the Twins have a mediocre offense and seemingly a well below average bullpen, pitching five solid innings at a time doesn’t figure to produce many wins. He’ll make his next start Sunday against the Rays.

Woods Richardson allowed nine hits in the contest, so this could have gone much worse. The 25-year-old will likely be the fourth starter to open the season for Minnesota and is the definition of “just a streaming option” at this stage of his career.

Woods Richardson gave up only one hit, though it was a 429-foot homer from Otto Kemp. He walked none and dropped his spring ERA to 6.55 in 11 innings. That’s still not great, but his rotation spot figured to be secure coming into the spring and his current 11/1 K/BB is obviously just fine.

He struck out three and walked one, but Woods Richardson has now allowed seven earned runs on 13 hits in five innings in his last two spring starts. The good news is that he registered a 27 percent whiff rate, and the splitter he introduced at the end of last season continued to miss bats. However, Woods Richardson had just a 56 percent strike rate overall and threw a first-pitch strike to just seven of the 17 batters he faced. He likely has a spot in the rotation locked up, but with Mick Abel looking good this spring, Woods Richardson will need to perform better to hold onto his spot.