OAKLAND, Calif. >> The baseball he was throwing, Chris Paddack said on Friday night, felt like a dumbbell. The ball felt heavy, his body felt heavy.

For a second time this season, Paddack described feeling dead arm after a start, something that’s not terribly surprising given the workload he’s had in the past two seasons. Paddack underwent his second Tommy John surgery in May 2022 and entered this season having pitched just 27 1/3 major league innings in the previous two seasons.

“We’ve got to stay on top of that. I’ve had a rough four weeks,” Paddack said after allowing three runs on five hits with three walks and three strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings against the Athletics. “As I entered June, the body felt just a little heavy. You can prepare all offseason, all spring training, but a man that hasn’t been able to throw this many innings in three years now due to injury, you can’t do enough to prepare for this.”

The Twins haven’t done much to minimize his workload this season. Occasionally he’s had a shorter start or two, but they haven’t skipped one.

And to this point, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, they weren’t ready to do anything different with Paddack. But they’ll take the next day or two to assess and then see where he’s at, the manager said.

“There’s nothing — and I use the word acute a lot — but there’s nothing acute going on right here,” Baldelli said. “There are ups and downs in everyone’s season, especially his, coming back from what he’s coming back from.”

Baldelli noted that Paddack felt this way a couple weeks ago and then saw a spike in his velocity after going through a dead-arm period. Baldelli called the dramatic ups and downs with Paddack’s stuff “not unheard of and not unexpected.”

But the Twins will still watch him closely to see if there’s anything they can do for him.

“We knew that coming in that there was going to be a roller coaster of events, up, down with the body and the mind,” Paddack said. “But … I have to get ready for my next start.”

Bullpen gets day off

Before Saturday’s game, Baldelli talked about how taxed his team’s bullpen was after a run of close games. Bailey Ober figured out one way to solve that.

“Bullpens are going to get beat up sometimes just because of tight games,” Ober said. “As starting pitchers your job is to sometimes go as deep as you can and try to give them a break.

How about nine innings?

Ober’s complete game against the Athletics on Saturday meant that a group of tired relievers got a rest day. The team also has the day off on Monday.

“We were really looking for something like this. You don’t normally get the nine innings,” Baldelli said. “ … This is the kind of win and performance by Bailey Ober that can carry on beyond today, for a while. We have an off day on Monday. You start adding this day and Monday together and you get a nice little reset for the bullpen.”

Briefly

The Twins close out the series Sunday at Oakland Coliseum. It will be their final game in the ballpark, which has been the Athletics’ home since 1968. Starting next season, the A’s plan to play at 14,000-seat Sutter Health Park in Sacramento through 2027 as their new stadium in Las Vegas is constructed. … Pablo López will draw the start for that game, looking to rebound after giving up five runs in four innings his last time out.