If Kenta Maeda returns to the Twins this season, it could be as a reliever

Kenta Maeda isn't yet throwing at game speed as he rehabs his right elbow from last summer's Tommy John surgery, but that could come within the next few weeks, with minor-league game action to follow. And though Maeda continues to deflect questions about when he might rejoin the Twins, it seems unlikely he could get comfortable with a starting pitcher's workload over the next two months.

But Twins manager Rocco Baldelli allowed himself to daydream Wednesday about another alternative: relief pitching.

Maeda worked out of the Dodgers' bullpen in his four seasons in Los Angeles, making 34 regular-season relief appearances and another 21 in the postseason.

"To add a Cy Young-caliber competitor back to your group in the bullpen? Count me in. Count me in," Baldelli said of Maeda, who owns a 1.64 playoff ERA out of the bullpen. "I don't want to get too wound up before we get to that point. We want to let Kenta stick to his program and come back at the right pace. That being said, if it all works out, I'll be ecstatic to be able to write his name in there and send him out to pitch for a couple innings at a time."

Maeda was primarily a starter in Los Angeles from 2016-2019. During the regular season he started 103 of his 137 games with the Dodgers. All three of his playoff appearances in 2016 were starts, as he posted a 6.75 ERA.

Still his postseason move to the bullpen was extremely effective, with 27 strikeouts over 22 innings while allowing just 15 hits and five walks from 2017-2019.

Maeda's lone playoff appearance for the Twins came in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card series in 2020 against Houston. He struck out five over five scoreless innings.

But Baldelli emphasized what happens this season is all speculation for now, that no timeline exists for the 2020 AL Cy Young runner-up's return. And the need to provide him with extra rest between appearances could make it difficult to put him on the roster, since the September limit has been reduced to 28 players, rather than the 40-man teams of previous seasons.

"I don't think there are any certainties with guys that are coming back from surgeries. Everything is going as well as we could hope at this point, which is nice," Baldelli said. "He seems like he's in a really good spot. So we'll take that."