Any realistic notion of the Twins being competitive this year was based on their starting pitching carrying an otherwise underwhelming roster. Going into spring training, they had what they thought was excellent rotation depth, featuring All-Stars Joe Ryan and Pablo López at the top, and eight total MLB-ready options.
It's what team officials touted throughout the offseason as the reason for fans to believe, it's what projection systems identified as the Twins' biggest — and, really, only — clear strength, and it's what gave some hope that the weakness of a shaky bullpen could be minimized with a lighter reliever workload.
And it lasted around three hours. López went down with a season-ending elbow injury on the first morning of full-squad workouts. Shortly after that, David Festa was shut down with a return of last season's shoulder issues, from which there's still no return timeline.
Despite losing López and Festa prior to even breaking camp, the Twins' rotation fared remarkably well in the early going, signaling that perhaps starting pitching could be a strength after all. Through the end of April, the rotation ranked No. 6 in innings, No. 8 in ERA, and No. 12 in Win Probability Added out of 30 teams.
In particular, the emergence of 25-year-old Taj Bradley and 24-year-old Mick Abel, both of whom were acquired at last July's trade deadline, provided much-needed optimism for the present and future rotation. Sadly, that was also short-lived, with Bradley and Abel now joining López and Festa on the injured list.