Yankees face Twins slump test with Cole, Rodón questions

Yankees vs – The Yankees start a three-game set against the Minnesota Twins with their offense in a shaky stretch and a rotation that could be reshuffled fast. Gerrit Cole opens against Mike Paredes, Carlos Rodón is now headed to the IL before Saturday’s scheduled start, a

By the time the Yankees take the field tonight, the question won’t be whether they can win a game. It will be how much of their recent trouble they can carry—and whether facing the Minnesota Twins is the kind of matchup that still gives them an escape route.

Everything that can go wrong lately for New York has, lately. They’ve been losing games. Injuries have piled up. The offense has gone cold. Pitchers who’ve been having good years have also had off days they couldn’t explain away with one swing or one inning. Defensive lapses haven’t helped, either.

So this weekend’s three-game set matters. The Twins are the opponent again, and they’re not the same team New York has seen in recent years. After trading away a lot of their notable players at last year’s trade deadline, Minnesota is in a rebuild. Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are still around, but the team looks different. They’re still somewhat in the playoff race. though that’s more a product of the AL Central than anything else.

The series begins later tonight. Here are the probable pitching matchups across the next few days.

Friday: Gerrit Cole vs. Mike Paredes (7:04 pm ET)

Cole, fresh off the injured list, arrived like a pitcher trying to prove a point. In two of his starts after returning, he threw 6+ inning shutouts, including a game where he struck out 10. Since then, though, things have tilted the other way. Across his five starts, Cole has a 6.12 ERA and a 5.95 FIP. The biggest problem in that stretch has been home runs—he’s allowed seven in those five games.

The Twins, for their part, have not been a team that struggles to hit the ball out of the park. They were ninth in MLB with 110 home runs going into Thursday’s games.

This is the Yankees’ first ever meeting with the rookie Mike Paredes. It will also be only his fifth career start and seventh game overall, after being called up in late May. His results so far have been okay: he has a 4.26 ERA and a 103 ERA+. But his FIP is noticeably worse at 5.44, and he doesn’t strike out many hitters.

Saturday: Carlos Rodón TBD vs. Zebby Matthews (1:35 pm ET)

Rodón is the kind of starter who can frustrate you even when he’s being effective. His 4.6 BB/9 rate is high, and only 61 percent of his pitches on the season have gone for strikes. Still, he has shown he can get results: he’s posted a 3.30 ERA and a 3.45 FIP.

The question has always been the same—whether the walks burn him and how deep he can get into games.

Then the plan changed.

Update: Carlos Rodón is going on the IL with left elbow inflammation.

That leaves the Saturday spot start situation open. Elmer Rodríguez pitched last night at Triple-A, so he’s unavailable for a spot start. The possibility floating around is Brendan Beck. who made a spot-start cameo back in May and was supposed to go tonight for Scranton. Beck will at the very least be up tomorrow as a potential “bulk guy” in front of an opener.

As for Zebby Matthews, he’s also fairly inexperienced. The Yankees have seen him before, though, and they’ve had success. They faced him last year in August and September. In the second of those meetings, the Yankees’ offense scored nine runs on 11 hits in just three innings.

Matthews’ nine starts this year have generally landed right around league average.

Sunday: Ryan Weathers vs. Joe Ryan (1:35 pm ET)

Sunday sets up another pitcher question—how much of the Yankees’ offense slump is real, and how much is just timing.

Ryan Weathers is taxing to watch. but unlike some pitchers who can look shaky and still deliver good outcomes. his numbers don’t quite hold up as “pretty good” right now. His ERA is 4.08, which is technically better than average at 104 ERA+, and his FIP is 4.13. That said, when Weathers is bad, it tends to be bad enough to push a game out of reach.

In his last start, he lasted 1.2 innings and allowed five runs to the Tigers. The defense hurt him—only two of the runs were earned—but he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory that day.

Then there’s Joe Ryan on the other side.

After a borderline ace-type season in 2025 that put him in trade rumors during the Twins’ deadline sell-off. Ryan has taken a step back this year if you only look at his ERA. His ERA is lower than the player he was last season, but the advanced numbers tell a different story. Ryan has a 2.95 FIP, the best of his career, and his 0.9 HR/9 rate is by far his best ever.

If the Yankees’ offense is in one of their moods, he could breeze through them—because a quick glance at his stats might make it look like he isn’t as good this year.

Yankees Twins Gerrit Cole Mike Paredes Carlos Rodón Zebby Matthews Ryan Weathers Joe Ryan AL Central series preview