Beyond allowing a two-run home run to Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson, the 28-year-old southpaw (interestingly) struggled against left-handed hitters, a trend dating back to last season. Here is how Funderburk fared against right- and left-handed hitters in 2024:

• vs. Left: 13 2/3 innings pitched, 64 batters faced, 15 hits allowed, zero home runs allowed, nine walks, 19 strikeouts, 1.76 WHIP
• vs. Right: 20 2/3 innings pitched, 97 batters faced, 26 hits allowed, four home runs allowed, six walks, 13 strikeouts, 1.55 WHIP

The Dallas Baptist University product produced similar results at Triple A, generating a 1.62 WHIP over 22 left-handed hitters faced, compared to a 1.22 WHIP over 38 right-handed hitters faced. The three-batter minimum rule has made left-handed specialty relievers an extinct player type.

That being the case, modern southpaws must perform well against righty batters to justify a roster spot—but they still generally excel against left-handed hitters, making Funderburk’s performance last season an oddity.

As noted earlier, Funderburk didn’t perform well overall.

The concept of platoon advantage or disadvantage becomes meaningless when a pitcher is ineffective against everyone.

Still, even when he performed well at both levels in 2023, he was more effective against right-handed hitters. Funderburk is a true east-to-west pitcher, relying on his cutter and sinker over 60% of the time. He complements his fastball variations with a changeup and slider.

In the minors (and his brief stints with the parent club), Funderburk’s best pitch has consistently been his cutter. He often throws the pitch high and tight in the zone against righties.

When he executes well, it runs in on those hitters’ hands, minimizing their ability to generate competitive swings. Like this:

Funderburk also often employs his changeup against righties, a pitch known for being utilized by pitchers to attack opposite-handed hitters. He can throw the pitch low in the zone effectively, deploying it as a complementary offspeed pitch to his high-in-the-zone cutter. He can tunnel them, out of the hand, and let the arm-side, downward action of the changeup naturally play off the glove-side ride of the cutter.Unfortunately, he has yet to find an adequate pitch mix against same-handed hitters. Ideally, his sinker would function as the fastball variant he could rely on against lefties. It should run in at their hands, the same way the cutter does to righties.

Unfortunately, the pitch has yet to become as effective as his cutter, because he’s consistently throwing it to the glove side of the plate—where it can’t compromise opponents’ contact profile the same way, and where misses will tend (because of the difficulty of getting a pitch that runs arm side across to the other side of home) to find the heart of the zone.

Lefty hitters can crowd the plate, fight the pitch off, or hit it hard in play, unworried about being jammed. His slider is an adequate complementary breaking pitch. However, the pitch becomes less effective when he’s unable to attack the zone with either of his fastballs.

He will need to improve his sinker’s effectiveness against same-handed hitters, by developing the confidence to steer it inside on them.

If the pitch continues to generate lousy results, he’ll have to try his cutter against lefties, too. Since the cutter and the slider will have the same horizontal trajectory out of the hand, that could be somewhat viable, but it doesn’t solve the problem of making lefties cover the inner half of the plate.

Because he hasn’t yet found the success he wants even against righties, for the time being, Funderburk is focused on improving his overall process.

“I think the simplest way to do it is to make it the same every single time, no matter if you’re going in to face three lefties or three righties,” he said Saturday, before his season debut. “It’s just getting your mentals right to be prepared, and then whatever you do out in the bullpen to make sure all your pitches are moving the way you want them, locating where you want to. For me, it’s easier to go into the game doing it that way, rather than trying to prepare lefty or righty.”

At the same time, he knows the team won’t be able to schedule and optimize his usage with his development in mind, as affiliates do for pitchers in the minors. He’ll have to get everything sharpened enough to be ready at a moment’s notice, since the team could well call upon him to come into some dirty innings and escape jams via matchup play.

“It’s all still kind of the same—you’re trying to do the same thing every single day,” Funderburk said. “You’re right about the minor leagues being a little bit more programmed and scheduled, but they did a good job down there. I got lengthened out one time. I had a couple one-innings. This week, I went throw, day off, throw. It’s also early on, so you can’t get so much, but I’ve gotten lengthened out and I have thrown two out of three days. So it’s kind of all the stuff I would do up here, I’ve done this year. Now it’s just about making sure I’m right when I get in there

Funderburk’s window of opportunity to become a fixture of Minnesota’s bullpen is closing.

That said, he will likely receive extended opportunities with the club this season, even though his first appearance was disheartening. Danny Coulombe is entrenched as the club’s primary left-handed reliever.

Anthony Misiewicz and Richard Lovelady are intriguing lefties who could soon inhabit a bullpen spot with the parent club, too.

However, given that Funderburk possesses a minor-league option, the club will be more willing to move him back and forth between St. Paul and the parent club.

Funderburk could have a future with the Twins. He is generally effective against right-handed batters. However, he must start overpowering same-handed hitters to become a more complete weapon.