MINNEAPOLIS — His father’s career began by racing downfield at breakneck speeds, seeking to tackle opposing return men amid the chaos of kickoffs and punts. One of his younger brothers is a fighter pilot who flies F-35 Lightning II jets at speeds up to Mach 1.3 (997 mph). His other younger brother feels the rush any time he steps into the cockpit of the C5 cargo plane he flies for a living.
When he was assigned some of last October’s highest-leverage moments, tasked with preserving leads in front of ravenous Target Field crowds waiting for the other shoe to drop, there perhaps was no better candidate for the situation than Griffin Jax. Handling pressure-filled moments is seemingly part of the Minnesota Twins reliever’s DNA.
“Maybe we’re all adrenaline junkies,” Jax said. “I don’t know if it’s in your blood. You have to experience it and see how you react to it and then see if you can thrive in that situation. I don’t know.”
What Jax does believe is that the way he performed last October, when he earned a pair of holds and struck out five batters over 3 2/3 scoreless innings in four playoff appearances, carried over to this season.
Combined with improved pitch qualities and a refined usage mix, the confidence Jax gained in those outings helped him become one of baseball’s top high-leverage relievers.
Entering Thursday, FanGraphs ranked Jax second among all relievers with 2.3 WAR, the byproduct of a season in which he’s 4-4 with eight saves, 24 holds, a 1.95 ERA and 84 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings pitched. Previously a starting pitcher with not much of a future, Jax is developing into the most trusted man in the Twins bullpen.
“Success breeds confidence,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s continued to get better. He’s a really good example of a guy that embraced the move to the bullpen, was equipped when he stepped in the door, but was never fine with what he had, content. He was never content. He wanted to continue to improve. He’s bettered himself every day.”
At the heart of it all is a routine Jax said was passed down by his father, Garth, who played 10 seasons in the NFL, and later was refined at the Air Force Academy, where Jax pitched for three seasons.
From diet to hydration to stretching to lifting to cardio, Jax spends hours each day preparing himself.
After realizing early in his career he wasn’t as talented as many of his minor-league peers, Jax decided he would outwork everyone else. From the high school days when he was built more like a middle linebacker to transforming into his current slot wide receiver form, Jax reshaped his body through hard work that teammates say is unparalleled.
“The weight room and training room is where you’ll find Griffin Jax the most,” bullpen coach Colby Suggs said. “It seems like he’s really found his routine, found the ways he likes to recover, the way his body recovers best, and he’s really focused on what he needs to do to be prepared to pitch for us every single day. … He’s one of the more prepared (pitchers) you’ll see in the game.”
Griffin Jax yells after getting the final out in a win. He has a 1.95 ERA in 66 appearances this season. (D. Ross Cameron / USA Today)
Asked how often Jax is in the weight room, Suggs asked “Which time?”
The blueprint for Jax’s won’t-be-outworked regimen was developed by his father in the 1980s.
The Dallas Cowboys selected Garth Jax in the 11th round of the 1986 NFL Draft. The rookie was fifth on the depth chart at middle linebacker for legendary coach Tom Landry’s squad.
Hoping to make a career of it, Garth sought a niche. A teammate suggested the special teams unit.
“The first time I did, I knocked the snot bubbles out of a guy on a kickoff,” Garth said. “Came off the field, Landry shook my hand. That’s what got me on (the roster). … I didn’t start until my fourth year. I had to make a name for myself.”
Garth Jax played for the Cardinals and Cowboys during his 10-year career. (Paul Spinelli / Associated Press)
Garth retired in 1995, a year after Jax was born. Though he doesn’t remember his father’s playing career, Jax spent enough time in NFL clubhouses because his dad worked three seasons as the Arizona Cardinals coordinator of NFL programs and community outreach. From an early age, Jax understood how much effort a professional career required.
Though he was a third-round draft pick of the Twins in 2016, Jax realized he wasn’t as talented as some of his teammates.
He didn’t have overpowering stuff and survived on command. To make a career of it, Jax likely needed to find a niche of his own.
“You see the difference in talent versus work ethic,” Jax said. “When I was coming up in the minors, it made me kind of upset for some guys because they didn’t put in the work. When I saw that, I said I’m never going to let myself look like that. I’m always going to make sure I’m doing everything I can, regardless of performance, to take care of the things I need to or that are in my control so that if skill does ever match up to my work ethic, I would take off. I think that’s kind of where I’m at now.”
Jax wasn’t the pitcher he is now when he made his major-league debut on June 8, 2021.
A starting pitcher at the time, Jax needed to focus on pitching deep into games and couldn’t air it out. His fastball topped out at 95.2 mph and averaged 92.6 mph. His sweeper averaged 83.3 mph.
Over 82 innings, including 14 starts, Jax accrued a 6.47 ERA in 2021.
But the Twins thought Jax could be successful as a reliever. If enhanced, his pitch characteristics suggested a path forward.
“I got super lucky,” Jax said. “How many guys finish half a season with a 6 ERA and get a chance to come back the next year? I got that second chance and I wasn’t going to miss that opportunity again. I was going to make sure that I did everything possible to not put myself in that situation again.”
Griffin Jax, Filth. pic.twitter.com/s1ZnAthCN9
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 12, 2024
During that offseason, Jax went to Driveline Baseball for an assessment. At the behest of the Twins, he worked to improve the velocity and command of his fastball, sweeper and changeup.
The plan at the start of the 2022 season was for Jax to begin at Triple A and learn how to handle life in the bullpen. He’d need to focus on bullpen mentality and recovery, specifically how to be an effective pitcher when you’re not at your best. Two days later, Jorge Alcala suffered an injury and Jax was promoted to the majors.
Jax learned on the fly how to be a big-league reliever from veterans like Tyler Duffey and Emilio Pagán. Early in the season, the Twins didn’t use him on back-to-back days to build him up. But everything had changed by mid-June as Jax, who threw his sweeper 48 percent of the time, found success.
However, late in the season, the league began adjusting to Jax’s sweeper and started to do more damage. After carrying a 2.65 ERA through June, Jax posted a 4.11 ERA the rest of the season. Though he was disappointed by the Twins’ September 2022 collapse, the positives outweighed the negatives and Jax set out to further refine his pitches.
He’s spent each of the past two offseasons at Driveline. The work is paying off.
Earlier this season, Jax’s fastball hit a career-high 98.9 mph. His fastball is averaging 97.1 mph this year. His average changeup registers at 92.3 mph and his sweeper is sitting at 88.9 mph.
With the lethal mix working together, Jax is striking out 11.7 batters per nine innings, an increase of 2.0 over his previous career high. Jax also is walking fewer batters than ever and opponents are batting only .181 against him.
“The changeup is filthy right now,” Suggs said. “He’s added a couple variations of other breaking balls at times. The two fastballs he throws are both mid-to-upper 90s with real special qualities. Guys weren’t hitting the sweeper hard, but they were hitting it enough to get base hits. It was a little bit too predictable. He wanted to use his mix a little bit differently and started to use a few more fastballs to make it an even mix to make it more unpredictable and it seems to be working out for him. He’s done a great job adjusting to what the hitters are telling us to do.”
The Jax family came together for the Sept. 11 remembrance at Target Field that included a flyover. (Bruce Kluckhohn / Imagn Images)
Earlier this week, the adrenaline junkies reunited for the first time in several years.
Because of their assignments, the Jax boys and their parents haven’t all been in the same place for as long as anyone could remember.
Twin brothers Parker and Carson are 23 months younger than Jax and both also attended the Air Force Academy.
The older twin by 3 minutes, Capt. Parker “Mad” Jax was first assigned to fly F-16s after graduating from the Academy. Since then, he’s trained in Wichita Falls, Texas; San Antonio; South Korea; and last year went to Phoenix for F-35 training. The younger twin, Capt. Carson Jax, who flies C5 cargo planes and is based in Sacramento, Calif., has been deployed to Spain, Portugal and Japan, among other locations, since graduation.
Griffin Jax poses with his brothers during a trip to Oracle Park in San Francisco. (Courtesy of the Jax family)
Trying to align all three boys’ schedules can be difficult. But a year after they initially tried to do so, the Jax family pulled it off and played a significant role in the Twins’ 9/11 remembrance on Wednesday.
Sitting in the stands were the boys’ parents, Garth and Elizabeth. Flying overhead as part of a four-plane formation of F-35s were Parker in one jet and his wife, Capt. Chandler “Goldie” Jax, in another. After the flyover, Griffin stood at home plate and caught the first pitch from Carson.
Griffin Jax and his brother Capt. Carson Jax embrace after the ceremonial first pitch. (Bruce Kluckhohn / Imagn Images)
As Parker and his sister-in-law soared overhead, Griffin Jax proudly looked on. He’s been bragging to teammates for years about his “badass brothers.”
“They’re not as good of athletes, but they are way smarter than me,” Jax said. “Both got near-perfect ACT scores. They got into the Academy with their brains. I got in because of baseball.”
Parker is equally in awe of his older brother. He’s seen how dedicated Jax is to working and doing the right things when he’s away from the field.
He agrees there’s likely a connection the four Jax men have in their love of adrenaline rushes. But Parker thinks the biggest similarity the boys and their father share is their appreciation for team chemistry. As one of 30 pilots in his fighter squadron, Parker sees a lot of the same type of mentality in the armed forces that is shared by players on a sports team.
“I was explaining to my dad the other day that being a fighter pilot is a lot like being on a sports team,” Parker said. “All we do every day is go and study just like my dad and Griffin watch film every day. We’re kind of doing the same. We brief on a sortie. We take off and then we land and then we watch the film of exactly what we did and we talk about what went wrong and how to better execute it. In that sense, it’s very similar to being on a sports team.”
Garth loves the professional sports connection he and Griffin share. He and Elizabeth, a high school athlete herself, attended the playoffs last October. Though Griffin restricts how much baseball is discussed when the family is together, Garth still finds a way to get his fix.
Griffin Jax got bodied but held on to make the play to end the eighth pic.twitter.com/uibbAgrmKj
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) October 4, 2023
He’s not at all surprised how Jax responded when he faced the heart of the Toronto Blue Jays lineup on consecutive days last October with the outcome in doubt, thriving by producing a scoreless inning each time. He loved how ESPN analyst Alex Rodriguez identified Jax as the “son of a football player” when the pitcher held onto the ball after colliding with Toronto’s Cavan Biggio along the first-base line for the final out of the eighth inning in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series.
Following his brothers’ participation in the pregame activities Wednesday, Jax got into the act himself, pitching two scoreless innings to keep the Twins ahead in a game they needed to win, his first two-inning appearance since July 4, 2022.
“(Carson) said when he walks into that cockpit, ‘I get goosebumps. I’m nervous,’” Garth said. “I think it’s the hunger for that rush. I think maybe it was in our DNA. I don’t know. It’s not made for everybody. The (boys) had that niche, that gift, whatever it was, they had it. I’m an adrenaline junky. I’ve gone up in F-18 Hornets, I’ve gone around in NASCAR cars. I’ve done a lot of fun things, but they live it every day. We all grew up and hopefully have passed that along. If it’s not in their DNA, it’s in the cosmos somewhere.”
(Top photo: David Berding / Getty Images)
