One Injured MN Twins Starter Ready; Another Shoves for Saints

The Minnesota Twins returned from the 2025 MLB All Star break on Friday night, in Colorado, against the NL bottom-dweller Rockies, who lost 3X as many first-half games as they won (22-74).

On paper, it looked like the perfect place for Minnesota to begin the second half of their regular season, especially as Twins players and coaches try their best to convince team president Derek Falvey that the front office should buy at the MLB trade deadline, not sell.

Unfortunately, reality doesn’t always meet expectations. And that was certainly the case on Friday, when Chris Paddack took the mound at Coors Field and struggled to get anybody out early on, allowing five earned runs by the end of the second inning.

Look out on the second deck 🚀 pic.twitter.com/KYr3AcXZdP

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) July 19, 2025

The Sheriff eventually settled in, gutting out five innings (8 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 97 P), and the MN Twins fought their way back into it, but couldn’t complete the late-inning comeback, eventually falling 6-4 to the lowly Rockies.

Bailey Ober has successful rehab start, Zebby Matthews ready

While last night wasn’t the return to play Minnesota was hoping for, there was some good news throughout the evening, on the injury front. Hours earlier, Bailey Ober made his first rehab start for the St. Paul Saints… where the 30-year-old righty shoved for 4 innings (4 H, 0 R, 3 K, 0 BB).

Night is over for @baileyOB_17. He goes 4.0 shutout innings allowing four hits and strikes out three. He throws 50 pitches, only 7 balls. He threw 18 fastballs that averaged 90.1 mph, topped out at 91.6 mph

— St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) July 19, 2025

Related: Secret High Roller Emerges to Anchor New MN Twins Ownership Group

But that wasn’t the only good injury news from Friday night, that might help fans offset the disappointment of a slow start out of the break, revolved around another Minnesota Twins starter, Zebby Matthews, who has been out of the rotation since the first week of June, when he went down with a shoulder injury.

On Saturday, Zebby’s time on the IL will come to an end. According to multiple reports, Matthews will be activated off the injured list today, before he starts game two of this series in Colorado. He’ll throw his first MLB pitch in over a month at approximately 7:10 PM CDT.

Zebby Matthews will start tomorrrow for the #MNTwins. Travis Adams is headed back to Triple-A St. Paul.

— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) July 19, 2025

Minnesota Twins sending Travis Adams down

In order to make room for the 25-year-old righty, the Twins are sending long-reliever, Travis Adams, who appeared in three games, while up with the Big League club, tossing 9 total innings and posting an underwhelming 6.00 ERA, 73 ERA+ and a 1.444 WHIP. On the bright side, his 3.53 FIP gives him some hope to build on.

If Minnesota Twins players and coaches want to hold out hope that the front office will look to buy at the MLB trade deadline, they need to win the last two games of this series.

Because when they fly out of Denver on Sunday, they’ll be LA bound, for a three game set against the 58-40 Los Angeles Dodgers, where they’re scheduled to face Shohei Ohtani in game one on Monday night.