Bailey Ober’s 2026 season ended with a jolt, and it may have ended with more than that for the Twins.
The right-hander was tagged for six runs on 10 hits over five innings Saturday as Minnesota dropped a 6-2 decision to the Rangers in its second-to-last game of the year. It was a rough final line in a year that never settled into one clean shape for Ober: a strong opening, a midseason interruption, and a late stretch where he was used far less predictably.
Ober said he felt good overall, but he knows how quickly a season can be defined by a couple of bad nights.
“I felt pretty good for the most part this year,” he said. “Today and the Pittsburgh outing [in May], you take those two games out of the equation and the numbers look a lot different. Just have to battle through even when the plays aren't made, have to find ways to get outs and get out of the inning.”
Saturday played out like a condensed version of his year. Ober carved through the first inning on six pitches and retired the first five hitters he faced.
Then Texas strung together five straight hits and pushed Minnesota into a 4-1 hole. He was also beaten by solo homers in the fourth and fifth.
The box score showed five strikeouts and one walk, but the damage came from pitches that missed their spots. His velocity was up a bit - 88.1 miles per hour on his four-seam fastball and 89.3 on his sinker - but that still wasn’t enough to save him when he leaked balls into the middle of the plate.
“I think he just left some balls in the middle of the plate and got up, and they took advantage of it,” said manager Derek Shelton.
What comes next is the part nobody around the Twins can ignore. Ober heads into the offseason with his future in Minnesota very much up in the air, and he knows it.
He’s one of four Twins starters - along with Joe Ryan, Pablo López and Dean Kremer - who are entering their final season before free agency. With a wave of young arms pushing up behind them, one or more of those veterans could wind up on the trade block.
Ober admitted he has thought about the possibility that Saturday could have been his last outing in a Twins uniform.
“A little bit,” he said. “Obviously not when I'm out there.
At the end of it, you never know if it's going to be the last one wearing this jersey. It's out of my control.
All I can do is go out there and get outs, and during the offseason just to focus on what I need to do to get better and hopefully come back and be in a good spot for next season.”
The way Minnesota handled him after he returned from the injured list only adds to the uncertainty. Ober spent time out with right elbow inflammation, then made 11 starts after coming back.
In six of those, he worked on six or more days’ rest. He also made the first relief appearance of his career on Sunday in Anaheim, then followed that with a start on five days’ rest.
Even when he was starting, the leash was short. Over his final six starts, he failed to get out of the fifth inning after the fifth inning just once. That usage pattern matters, especially with arbitration looming and Ober likely to get a raise from the $5.2 million he made this season.
So while a return is still possible - and certainly something he wants - nothing is locked in. Ober finished the year healthy, with a 4.47 ERA, a clear step up from his rough 2025, but not yet back to the level he was chasing.
“I feel really good physically,” he said. “I feel like I can keep going.
Nothing's bothering me. It's just, figure out the best way to get my body to move in an appropriate manner on the mound.”
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