Fresh from baseball bargaining, healthy Taylor Rogers throwing hard once again

FORT MYERS, FLA. — A week ago, Taylor Rogers wouldn't have believed he would be in Twins camp on Sunday. But he was preparing — no, wait, he was not preparing — just in case.

"You know how baseball superstition is — I wasn't packing a single thing," Rogers said shortly after throwing a bullpen session on the first day of spring training. "Was not going to get ready whatsoever."

Rogers doesn't want to take credit for ending baseball's lockout, but his empty suitcases seem to have worked. After several breakdowns, negotiators finally struck a deal on Thursday, Rogers cast the Twins players' vote in favor of the new collective bargaining agreement, and three days later, he was standing on a pitcher's mound getting ready to follow up his first All-Star season.

"It looked super bleak [on Wednesday] — until the next day," Rogers said. "It was an emotional roller coaster, that's for sure."

And as the Twins' player representative, he got to ride in the front car. Rogers took part in negotiations in late February in Jupiter, Fla., sitting at the table as owners' and union lawyers discussed possible compromises. "I mostly kept quiet, more an observer. The information I was passing back to the fellows, I wanted it to be accurate," Rogers said. "It was a neat experience. It changed my outlook on things — not better or worse, just tweaks. You see things a little differently."

It capped a busy winter for Rogers, one spent in constant contact with his teammates, texting, calling or Zooming daily to update them on the talks. But he was also busy making sure the middle finger on his pitching hand healed properly after a severe sprain that ended his season in late July. He was able to throw again by season's end, but waited another month just to make sure. Now, after months of throwing regularly in Denver with teammate Bailey Ober, now-former teammate Mitch Garver, Twins minor leaguer Spencer Steer, and his brother, Giants reliever Tyler Rogers, he's confident his left hand is fine.

"I threw my bullpens to [Garver]. He said a couple of times, 'that looks normal. That's what I remember.' So I was like, OK, we're good," Rogers said. "It feels like a normal finger now. I don't think about it anymore. I just do a little extra finger exercises at the end of the day, but other than that, no problems."

Perhaps the player most unaffected by MLB's 99-day lockout was Kenta Maeda, whose career is on hold after he underwent elbow surgery in September. The Twins introduced Maeda to a rehab trainer near his Los Angeles home before the lockout began, so the veteran righthander simply kept working with him when the team cut off communications.

Maeda said the new ligament in his right elbow is healing as scheduled, and he's getting excited about his progress. "I'm really happy that there's no pain in the elbow," he said through interpreter Daichi Sekizaki. "That's a really great feeling."

But as well as his arm is healing — a light game of catch with athletic trainers on Monday, something he began doing two weeks ago, is the next scheduled activity — Maeda is careful not to make any promises about returning to a major league mound this season.

"Obviously, I'd like to be able to pitch, but I know fishing isn't a thing I should do. So we'll see where the rehab process takes me, and if it turns out I can't, I won't be too upset. I know the whole process," said Maeda, the Twins' Opening Day starter last spring. "Even if [an early return] is possible, it would be toward the end of the season. So we're hoping for the Twins to go to the postseason and the World Series. There would be more chances for me to pitch."

All 19 scheduled Grapefruit League games, starting with Thursday's opener against the Red Sox at JetBlue Stadium, will begin at 1:05 p.m. this spring, the Twins announced. Minnesota's first Hammond Stadium game is Saturday against Boston. Single-game exhibition tickets go on sale at 1 p.m. Monday at twinsbaseball.com.