Under-the-weather Ober battles in 1st start, but appearance is brief

ST. LOUIS -- Throughout the latter stages of Spring Training, even as Bailey Ober kept racking up strong results, he repeatedly told reporters that he nonetheless felt a bit out of sync. His velocity was down, and though he was getting hitters out, he was not pleased with his delivery.

Unfortunately, just as Ober felt he had mostly ironed out those wrinkles, another complication struck. He got sick. Ober spent much of Friday in bed and Saturday taking IVs as he battled a virus. The right-hander walked two of the first three batters he faced, never really found his location, and though his velocity looked decent early, it dipped as the game went on.

It added up to one of the worst starts of Ober’s career and a disheartening 9-2 Twins loss to complete a St. Louis sweep. Ober was tagged for eight runs on eight hits in 2 2/3 innings. He walked three against three strikeouts, and permitted two homers and three doubles. It was the second consecutive year that Ober allowed eight runs in his season debut.

“It's obviously not the way you want to start the year, just like last year,” he said. “But it's done with, over, move on and get ready for the next one. It's just that same mindset, move on and put this one behind you.”

From the jump, Ober found himself behind in counts. His first few fastballs had a little more zip than the ones he threw for much of the spring, sitting around 91 miles per hour. But he walked two of the first three batters before escaping, and needed 28 pitches to get the first three outs.

It was pretty much the last thing that a pitcher working with diminished strength needed.

The Cardinals began the second with a single and a double, and on the first pitch of the third at-bat of the inning, the game changed. Ober left a fastball at 89.7 miles per hour right in the middle of the strike zone, and Victor Scott II deposited it over the wall in right field for a lead St. Louis would not relinquish.

It’s not an uncommon pattern when a pitcher finds himself walking batters for him to overcorrect and come too much in the zone. That’s especially dangerous when that pitcher isn’t at full strength.

“Other guys have had starts like that, too, where you’re pitching the way you normally pitch [and] maybe it doesn’t feel quite there,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “So you’ve got to just pound the zone and see what happens at that point.”

Ober gutted it out into the third, but quickly found himself in trouble again. The Cardinals racked up four hits on eight pitches before Ober hung a 2-1 slider to Pedro Pagés, who drilled it 399 feet to make the score 8-1 and put the game out of reach.

Baldelli said that the club thought about skipping Ober’s start but did not get close to making the swap. The potential options included moving up Chris Paddack, who is scheduled to start Monday in Chicago, and just starting long reliever Randy Dobnak, who pitched the final 5 1/3 innings.

“We discuss everything so yes [we discussed it],” Baldelli said, “but it’s not something that we were close to doing. We weren’t going to pull him out of the start unless there was a legitimate reason why and we felt confident that he shouldn’t be pitching. That wasn’t the case.”

Twins tidbits

? Willi Castro continued his season-opening tear with another double and a home run. He has a double in each of the three games this year and is the first Twin ever to start a season with a double and an RBI in each of the first three games.

? The top three hitters in the Twins lineup, Matt Wallner (walk, double), Carlos Correa (walk), and Byron Buxton (single) all reached base for the first time this year. They had been a combined 0-for-21 in the first two games.

? The game was delayed for 58 minutes in the middle of the fifth inning due to a thunderstorm.