Newest Twins pitcher Trevor Richards has fastball, will travel

NEW YORK – Trevor Richards has been traded four times in the past six years, each time during the season, and the Blue Jays had warned him that, given his impending free agency and their place in the standings, he probably would be sent elsewhere by Tuesday’s trade deadline.

“So it was just a matter of where,” he said Wednesday. When he learned his new team was at Citi Field, he made the three-hour drive from Baltimore, where the Jays were playing, to join the Twins. “Luckily, we were on the road. It’s easy to just pick up and go and get right to it.”

Richards, 31, has been in the majors for seven seasons, initially as a starter with the Marlins, but now mostly a reliever. He appeared in 45 games with the Jays this year, posting a 4.64 ERA.

His repertoire? “Fastball, changeup. I throw a lot of changeups,” Richards said on a day the Twins beat the Mets 8-3. “The goal is to just go after hitters and attack them and see what happens. That’s pretty much me in a nutshell.”

It cost the Twins a low-minor-league infielder, Jay Harry, to acquire him — a trade well worth making, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said.

“We’re adding a very good, proficient arm, a guy that can match up against both lefties and righties. He’s got an excellent changeup,” Baldelli said. “He can go two innings or maybe even more if you need him to. He fills a lot of different responsibilities and holes in a bullpen, and he’s a great teammate.”

Castro’s day off

Baseball is really boring, Willi Castro realized Wednesday. At least when you’re not playing it, he means.

Castro wasn’t in the Twins’ starting lineup for the first time since July 12, and he didn’t sub into the game later for the first time since … well, since last September. The All-Star utility player had appeared in all 106 Twins games before Wednesday, and “it was boring” just watching from the dugout, he said afterward.

“Rocco said to take today off and just relax,” Castro said. “If something happened during the game, I’d be out there, but they wanted me to relax.”

He admitted to being mildly disappointed, because playing all 162 — something no Twin has accomplished since Justin Morneau played in 163 (counting a one-game playoff) in 2008 — had become a goal of his. “Just being healthy, yeah,” he said. “As a player you always want to be in there.”

That’ll leave a mark

Byron Buxton lifted up his shirt and revealed his latest “souvenir,” as he called it — a baseball-sized red ring of swelling on his back, left there by a pitch that got away from Mets reliever Phil Maton.

“This one, wow. It just took the air out of you,” Buxton said of his career-high 10th plunking of the season. “It was like, bam! There wasn’t no reaction time. You had to stay in there, because he’s got a good sweeper.”

The Twins have now been hit by 75 pitches, by far the most in the majors.

“That ain’t good,” said Buxton, who homered earlier in the game. “Means we’ve got our nose on the plate.”

The final word

Buxton on President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey’s declaration that the Twins can win without making a major trade at the deadline: “That just shows how much trust we’ve got in ourselves and how much trust they have in us. We know we’ve got a wonderful team. Our chemistry is what makes us thrive. We have a lot of fun in here and we can translate into going outside and bringing the energy in here out there.”

Saints run rampant

Yunior Severino hit two home runs and a career-high six RBI as five relievers combined for a five-hit bullpen shutout in a 11-0 Saints victory against the Iowa Cubs at Principal Park.