The Twins haven’t had much going for them lately, but the news of newly acquired starting pitchers Mick Abel, who was traded to the Twins by the Philadelphia Phillies along with catcher Eduardo Tait in exchange for right-handed closer Jhoan Durán, and Taj Bradley, who was sent to the Twins by the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for right-handed reliever Griffin Jax, making their Twins debuts provided excitement for fans. However, Abel and Bradley ended up struggling significantly against the worst team in the American League.

Chicago White Sox dominated against newly acquired Twins starting pitchers, Mick Abel and Taj Bradley, last weekend at Rate Field in Chicago

Upon trading for Abel and Bradley, the Twins decided to start both pitchers in Triple-A so that they could work on refining certain aspects of their pitching. After one game each with Minnesota, it appears that they both still need to work on improving.

Abel, 24, started against Chicago on Saturday and failed to make it past three innings. Abel, who had a 1.76 ERA with 23 strikeouts in three starts for Triple-A St. Paul before being promoted last weekend, surrendered six earned runs on seven hits (one home run) and two walks while striking out two batters as the White Sox won 7-3. Not a great outing for the new Twins pitcher, who had a 5.04 ERA in six starts with Philadelphia this season.

Although Abel had a rough outing, Twins fans were at least still looking forward to seeing Bradley’s debut with his new team. It couldn’t be worse than Abel’s outing, right?

Well, Bradley, who had a 4.61 ERA with 95 strikeouts in 111 1/3 innings with Tampa Bay this season, somehow arguably had a worse start than Abel in his Twins debut against the White Sox, allowing seven earned runs, all in the first two innings, on nine hits (one home run) and one walk with one strikeout as Chicago shutout Minnesota 8-0 on Sunday.

Before his disastrous Twins debut, Bradley, 24, had a poor 7.53 ERA with 18 strikeouts in three outings for the St. Paul Saints.

At the end of the day, it was just one bad game each from Bradley and Abel, but it would have been nice for fans to see the team’s newly acquired young pitchers have better outings against the worst team in the American League.