Paddack hits IL set to rest and recover from arm fatigue

PHOENIX -- Chris Paddack knew this would happen at some point -- which made it easier for him to take a step back and think of this as the right move at the right time.

Paddack has faced inconsistent velocity and feel in his pitching arm in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. On Tuesday, he went on the 15-day injured list for right arm fatigue. The hope is that this will be a shorter stint, allowing Paddack to return for a start or two before the All-Star break, but the Twins will be responsive to how he feels.

“I think my body's been talking to me the past couple of starts, both against Oakland, where the Velo was down,” Paddack said. “I felt like I was hanging a little bit, back in that [throwing a] dumbbell feeling instead of a baseball, which is never a good thing.”

The Twins recalled Ronny Henriquez in an immediate roster move to round out their bullpen, but they still haven’t made clear their plans for Paddack’s rotation spot, which will come up for the first time on Thursday.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the club likely won’t tweak the order or rest schedule of its other starters, meaning that vacancy will remain on Thursday, for which the Twins will have to either call up a starter from Triple-A St. Paul or opt for a bullpen game, which would seemingly be less likely since Paddack is slated to miss multiple turns through the rotation.

The most intriguing scenario would be for the Twins to bring up top pitching prospect David Festa, who is the No. 5 prospect in the organization and recently snuck into MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 at No. 99. The organization has an open 40-man roster spot. Festa has 87 strikeouts and a 3.77 ERA in 59 2/3 innings this season for Triple-A St. Paul.

But if the Twins didn’t want to bring up Festa for a shorter look, their other options would be to bring up either Caleb Boushley or Randy Dobnak as a stopgap option. Louie Varland, though on the 40-man roster, would not be properly rested to make that start.

In the meantime, Paddack wanted to emphasize that he was only feeling fatigue, and not any pain, in his right arm as he ramped up to a full workload from the 18 1/3 innings he threw across the Minors and Majors last season, including the playoffs. He’s already up to 78 1/3 frames this season, coming off his second career Tommy John surgery.

“All the strength tests are up in the weight room,” Paddack said. “It's more so on start day after I'm 30-40 pitches in, it's just that slow fatigue that keeps creeping in the body that unfortunately I have no control over. I know I'm not going to be a hero trying to throw through that and have that cause something and me not being able to pitch for the rest of the season.”

As Paddack mentioned, his velocity has sharply varied across his last six starts dating back to May 25, when the fastball dipped for the first time from its roughly 93 mph average down to the 91 mph range. It briefly spiked up to the 95 mph range for his first two June starts but has been sharply back down across his last two outings, leading to this decision.

Throughout that time, Paddack has, at various points, said that he’d been going through periods of “dead arm” and feeling like the ball was overly heavy.

“If I'm throwing 90-91 [mph] out there and second-guessing my heaters or offspeed stuff, that's not putting us in the position that we need to be in,” Paddack said.

He has shown flashes of success with several successful starts amid an inconsistent season, leading to his 5.29 ERA through 15 starts. There was never a specific plan for a target number of innings or a timeline for a shutdown -- but there was always the expectation that his innings would need to be controlled.

And that time has come.

“This industry is obviously embarking upon an epidemic right now with arm injuries,” head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta said. “To have pitchers try to go out there and show you objectively that they don’t maybe have the type of velocity they had previously, it’s just a smart idea to do what’s best for the player.”