FORT MYERS, Florida — Imagine this: You’re a minor league baseball player, excited to be at spring training, eager to make an impression. On the mound, there’s Jhoan Duran, one of the best relievers in baseball, staring back at you.

He starts throwing and all of a sudden you’re seeing 99 mph fastballs. It’s only February but that doesn’t matter — the Twins right-hander appears to be near midseason form.

That’s the scene some Twins minor leaguers — plus Royce Lewis and Trevor Larnach — were treated to on Monday at Hammond Stadium. Before camp officially kicked off.

“He looks great. … I think he threw something different that he was working on. It looked funky,” said Lewis, who just tracked pitches against Duran and did not swing. This early, that was enough for the infielder.

“I couldn’t imagine trying to hit him,” he said.

Duran was a pillar of the back of the Twins’ bullpen last year, but he wasn’t the version of himself that he had been a year prior. He wasn’t throwing quite as hard, and wasn’t quite as effective.

This offseason, he worked to change that.

Jhoan Duran throws a pitch during a bullpen session on Feb. 13, 2025, in Fort Myers, Florida (Betsy Helfand/Pioneer Press)

The hard-throwing reliever entered camp 12 pounds lighter after he committed to shedding weight following his wedding ceremony in November. He committed to an intermittent fasting schedule, eating only between noon and 8 p.m. He cut some rice out of his diet, too.

“You could really look at him and see that he spent a lot of time and effort on coming in in excellent shape,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

Part of that can be credited to returning to his 2023 training routine, Duran said.

Maintaining the same level of consistency was key in that because, he said, he would often lose a day of training while flying back and forth between the United States and his home in the Dominican Republic last offseason.

“In 2024, I didn’t have a really good offseason because when I was doing my prep work for the regular season, I’d go to the Dominican for two weeks and go back and forth,” Duran said. “I want to be the same pitcher I was in 2023, so I want to do the same thing this year.”

Duran posted a 2.45 earned-run average across 62⅓ innings pitched in 2023. He struck out 84 batters, and opponents hit .207 off him. He also converted a career-high 27 saves.

His 2024 season was disrupted before it started when he suffered an oblique injury in spring training that altered the early part of his season.

“When you’ve got an injury like that, it’s hard to come back, you know, because when you’ve got that injury, you can’t move it … and do mechanics,” Duran said. “You need to be chilling, like sitting down all the time. You can’t do anything. For me, it’s not good because I lost my rhythm. Maybe that’s why. Maybe this year if I don’t got that, I’ll be good.”

Duran returned from the right oblique strain from the right oblique strain at the very end of April and pitched to a 3.64 earned-run average, striking out 66 batters in his 54⅓ innings last year.

While he was still throwing much harder than most — his four-seam fastball averaged 100.5 mph — it wasn’t what he was accustomed to. A season earlier, that pitch was averaging 101.8 mph, and Duran was hitting 103 and 104. The velocity on his splinker and curveball were down from 2023 last season, as well.

“I think from somewhere in the middle of the year on to the end of the year, he threw the ball exceptionally well,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The stuff was big. The breaking ball velocities were back.”

And now, with the oblique issue well in the past and an offseason of hard work behind him, he’s looking to build upon that and return to the heights of his early career.

“The numbers I didn’t like too much,” he said of his 2024 season. “I want to do the same as 2023.”

Related Articles

Twins making spring training tweaks after late-season collapse

Here are five questions as Twins spring training kicks off

Twins agree to deal with first baseman Ty France

Subscriptions to new Twins broadcast platform, Twins.TV, now available

Prospects Luke Keaschall and Andrew Morris among Twins’ non-roster invitees