Cole Sands thriving for Twins bullpen in second season as full-time reliever

CHICAGO – When Rocco Baldelli turns to Twins pitching coach Pete Maki in the dugout to ask which relievers are a good matchup against a specific hitter or section of a lineup, Cole Sands was such a frequent response that it turned into a running joke.

It makes sense. Sands throws five pitches — four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, curveball and splitter — and he throws them to hitters on both sides of the plate.

“I just rip on Pete constantly: ‘Do I even need to ask you who I think we should bring in right now?’” Baldelli said, laughing.

Sands, a 27-year-old righthander, is working toward more high-leverage opportunities, but he’s thriving in his Swiss army knife role. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in his past 18 innings, giving up eight hits while totaling 20 strikeouts and two walks over those 15 appearances.

He received votes for American League reliever of the month after he surrendered four hits and two unearned runs across 12⅔ innings in July.

“One of the biggest things was just working on attacking guys and finding pitches that I feel like I have confidence going into the zone with, then having some put-away pitches that are not the ones I’m using early in counts,” Sands said. “It took some trial and error with that. There are some good and bad days with it, but that’s what I would say is the biggest difference.”

Sands, who shifted to the bullpen full-time last year, was crushed by lefthanded hitters in 2023, yielding a .914 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. He refined his cutter to combat them this year, a pitch he threw sparingly last season and almost exclusively to righties, and now he’s holding them to a .693 OPS.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve dominated them, but it’s improved,” said Sands, noting the advanced scouting reports have been important.

Sands came into spring training throwing harder than ever, and it boosted his confidence when he faced the Los Angeles Dodgers at the start of the season and struck out All-Stars Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith during an outing in which he relied on his cutter.

“Obviously, the stuff is better, but you still have to be able to execute a lot of pitches,” he said. “Velo helps a lot, but at this level, it seems like anybody can turn around 97 mph. You have to be in good counts. You have to show different looks, different pitches.”

Joe Ryan will pitch Wednesday’s finale against the Chicago Cubs on regular rest with the Twins bypassing the option to hold him until Friday for their home doubleheader against the first-place Cleveland Guardians.

“I wouldn’t say there was really too much debate over what we were going to do,” Baldelli said. “We’re not going to rearrange everything we have going on right now because of a series that we have coming up. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. This is not the last week of the season. We have a long way to go, and a ton of games to play against good teams coming up.”

Keeping Ryan for his regular spot in the rotation lines up Bailey Ober to likely start one of the doubleheader games Friday and rookie Simeon Woods Richardson for Saturday. The Twins will receive a 27th man for the doubleheader and could call up a starter.

* Twins lefty reliever Steven Okert was put on the three-day bereavement list Monday. “It’s a family-related issue that he needs to go tend to,” Baldelli said. Josh Winder was called up to join the bullpen.

* Rookie shortstop Brooks Lee was out of the Twins’ lineup for the second consecutive game Monday because of a sore shoulder. “Today, he was fine to start if I wanted to put him in the lineup,” Baldelli said. “I figure another day wouldn’t do any harm.”

* Former Twins utilityman Nick Gordon was designated for assignment by the Miami Marlins on Monday. Traded before spring training for Okert, he was hitting .227 with eight homers and 32 RBI in 95 games while mostly playing left field.