Twins promote pitching prospect Travis Adams for bullpen

Travis Adams was sitting at his CHS Field locker Thursday when St. Paul Saints pitching coach Jonas Lovin approached him with a baseball and a pen.

“He goes, ‘Hey, could I get a big leaguer to sign this ball?’” Adams recalled Friday in front of his new Target Field locker. “Then I saw everybody behind me. They were all standing there, so they all congratulated me.”

Adams, a 25-year-old righthanded pitcher, will serve as a long reliever in the Twins bullpen. At Class AAA, he posted a 3-1 record and a 3.43 ERA in 13 outings (two starts) with 37 strikeouts and 10 walks in 42 innings.

A sixth-round pick in the 2021 MLB amateur draft out of Sacramento State, Adams was added to the Twins’ 40-man roster last November. He will make his major league debut when he appears in his first Twins game.

“[Thursday] was quite the shock,” said Adams, who is ranked as the No. 22 prospect in the Twins farm system by Baseball America. “When I got the news, I was shaking. I really didn’t know how to react. Just a lifelong dream finally coming true, and I still don’t think it’s really set in yet.”

The Twins demoted Kody Funderburk to St. Paul, leaving their bullpen without any lefthanded relievers, though the Blue Jays, in town for a three-game series this weekend, have a righthanded-heavy lineup. Funderburk gave up 15 hits and eight earned runs in eight innings over his past seven appearances.

Adams provides the first dedicated long reliever in the Twins bullpen this year. For the Saints, he often pitched every four days, one fewer day than a typical starter, and he covered three to four innings. It was designed to prepare him for a long relief role in the big leagues while maintaining his ability to start.

Adams, who is wearing No. 45 with the Twins, features a six-pitch mix with a mid-90s fastball and a solid slider that he threw more than a quarter of the time in Class AAA.

The Twins were deliberate when they shaped Adams’ piggyback role at St. Paul. The Tampa Bay Rays, at times, have used a designated piggyback reliever when they had a starting pitcher who would throw only four or five innings.

Adams won’t be asked to do that immediately in the big leagues, but there could be scenarios in the future where the Twins use him in a designated piggyback role, so they’re not using several relievers behind a young starter.

“That’s something we’ve actually talked about doing for a while,” Baldelli said, “but I see we’re implementing it now in the minor leagues.”

Carlos Correa was out of the Twins lineup for a third consecutive game, after he was scratched Wednesday against the Athletics because of back tightness.

Correa attributed the discomfort in his middle back to the hard dirt in the batter’s box at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, Calif., the A’s temporary home before their expected move to Las Vegas.

• Jonah Bride pitched two innings during the Twins’ 14-3 loss to the A’s on Thursday, the second position player forced to pitch this year, and Baldelli said he was petitioning members of the bullpen to throw in some money every time a position player takes the mound. “A little thank you and pat on the back for picking up the boys,” Baldelli said. “Trust me, no position player — only a couple of sickos really want to go out there and pitch. Most of the guys that go out there and pitch, they don’t really want to do it.”

• Bride said it was his first time on the mound since the summer of 2015, when he threw two innings for his Northwoods League collegiate team in Waterloo, Iowa. The infielder threw 38 pitches, most of them in the mid-60s but topping out at 80 mph. “I wish I had ripped out my knuckleball a little sooner,” he joked.