IS IT OR TAYLOR TYLER?

If you wanna know which twin is on the mound for the Giants — it’s in his pitch

BY EVAN WEBECK

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The neighbors kept telling Scott Rogers about these sounds that practically every afternoon rang down the dirt road that separated the family home from the rest of its suburban Denver setting.

Little did they know, they were listening to the origins of two future major leaguers. Brothers born 30 seconds apart, catch partners for life, this is where Tyler and Taylor Rogers got their start. Tossing a baseball 100 yards back and forth on that unpaved road. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Last year, the twins achieved a lifelong dream: They played catch on a major-league field for the first time. Now, they’re living out a reality that once seemed unimaginable: paired up in the Giants’ bullpen after Taylor was signed as a free agent over the winter. But while they look identical, their paths to re- uniting in San Francisco couldn’t be more different.

“Not that Taylor didn’t work,” says their dad, Scott, “but Tyler’s always had the tough road.”

Growing up, the Rogers brothers were so inseparable that neighborhood kids simply referred to them as “TayTy.”

They shared a truck and a cell phone. They attended the same classes and played on the same teams. In peewee football, they wore Nos. 20 and 21 — and different-colored face masks to tell them apart.

“I had a built-in best friend right there,” Tyler says. “We’d play catch, then just go straight into shooting hoops. We were always finding stupid games to play against each other.”

Any observers of those daily catch sessions, though, would have been able to spot a difference.

Taylor was developing quite the live left arm, a valuable commodity in baseball. Whereas his catch partner, Tyler, threw with his right hand and more than a few miles an hour slower.

The Rogers are mirror image twins — identical in every way, except with some defining characteristics (yes, there are some) on opposite sides. The phenomenon occurs in about 25 percent of sets of identical twins. (They wanted to play off it with their jersey numbers in San Francisco, but Mitch Haniger claimed No. 17 before Taylor could mirror his brother’s No. 71.)

That difference, for one of the few times in their lives, separated the twins. Taylor, the hard-throwing lefty, was a blue-chip prospect who earned a scholarship to the University of Kentucky. Tyler, the right-hander, didn’t make the varsity team until his senior year of high school.

It wasn’t until Tyler was at Kansas’ Garden City Community College that he developed a unique submarine motion that would set him on course to join his brother in the big leagues. Some 300 miles away from home, Tyler didn’t choose the school, which was 300 miles away from home, for its athletic prowess. It offered a fire science program, and Tyler figured if baseball didn’t work out, he would follow in the footsteps of his father, who retired at the end of last year after 35 years as a fireman in suburban Denver.

Giants opponents — and fans — will likely do a double-take this season with twins Tyler Rogers, left, and Taylor, right, joining forces in the San Francisco bullpen. The pair faced each other last season for the first time in the majors (Taylor was with the Padres) but will join a very exclusive group in 2023. They will become the fourth set of twins to play on the same team in MLB history and the first since Jose and Ozzie Canseco with the A’s in 1990.

It was at Garden City, where, at the coach’s suggestion, Tyler radically altered his motion. Quickly, he found himself extinguishing only metaphorical fires, out of the bullpen. He transferred to Division-I Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, where he broke the NCAA single-season record for saves as a senior (with 23), met his eventual wife (Jennifer) and got the attention of the Giants (who drafted him in the 10th round in 2013).

By 2019, Taylor, an 11th-round draft pick by the Minnesota Twins in 2012, had established himself as one the majors’ top left-handed relievers. Tyler, drafted a year later than his brother, was at a career crossroads.

Tyler toiled for four seasons at Triple-A for the Giants, where he compiled a 3.27 ERA in 179 games. He was named a Pacific Coast League All-Star twice. But each time, the request from above was for somebody who threw harder than Tyler, who relies on the deception of his knuckle-dragging delivery rather than trying to overpower hitters with a fastball that tops out in the mid-80s.

“There are other guys that have made long careers in the minors before they got called up. But none of them had their twin brother in the show, and they haven’t been asked why aren’t you there with him? They weren’t compared to anybody else,” Taylor says. “That’s more what I felt heavy for.” play 10 games, it’ll be 5-5.”

At one point that season, Jennifer left for a week. When she returned, Tyler had picked up his firefighting books again.

“That’s when I knew: This was probably going to be it for him,” she said.

Tyler was days away from calling it quits, when the call from the Giants finally came in late August. After all that waiting, Tyler made his big league debut that night in San Francisco and pitched a scoreless eighth inning against the Diamondbacks.

“He amazes me that he stuck it out that long,” Jennifer said.

“It’s always 50-50,” adds Taylor.

The last set of twins to share a major-league clubhouse did so just across the Bay Bridge, where Jose and Ozzie Canseco were A’s teammates for about 10 days in 1990. The Rogers will be only the fourth pair in history to suit up for the same team and are only the 10th set of twins to ever play in the majors. (The last ones were Ryan Minor and his brother Damon, the hitting coach for the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate Sacramento River Cats.)

Twenty minutes away from their childhood home is a rustic Italian ranch-style home adorned in stucco. With 5,000 square feet, there is enough room for both brothers, Jennifer, Tyler and Jennifer’s one-year-old son, Jack, and a putt-putt course, cornhole set-up and foosball table.

This is Casa de Rogers.

It was after the 2019 season that Taylor welcomed Tyler and Jennifer (Jack was born last April) into his Littleton, Colorado, home for the first time. They stayed for six weeks and started an annual tradition. These brothers, so inseparable, live together every offseason.

Every year around Dec. 17, the Rogers celebrate their birthday, and Tyler and his family leave for Taylor’s compound in Colorado. The mornings are for throwing. The afternoons: working out. But in the evenings? Anything goes.

“We’re still like those little kids,” Tyler said. “I got a Broncos football in the mail, and we’re just throwing it in the house like we’re kids again, but our parents aren’t there to tell us we can’t do that. So we just throw the ball in the house now.”

The big game in the family, though, is foosball. Would it surprise you to hear the score?

“Honestly,” Tyler says, “if we

Despite their divergent paths, Tyler insists he was never jealous of Taylor. Taylor was never anything but supportive while Tyler found his way. Growing up, they battled — but never fought.

“Rivalries begin because the older brother is always beating up on the younger one,” Taylor says. “When you win half the time and lose half the time, then you don’t develop a rivalry.”

While their teammates are eager to find ways to tell them apart (the tells, according to their loved ones, are their personalities: Taylor is the serious one; Tyler is more easygoing), the people that know them best are more curious about how their unique bond can help them when they’re on the same team.

“When they were with other teams,” Jennifer says, “if one had a bad outing, they wanted to call each other right away. Like if Ty had a bad outing, Tay would find something like, ‘hey, I noticed this, this and this.’

“It’s funny, you have all these computers and all these coaches … but I don’t know, the two of them just find other things that they can’t find.”

Just don’t expect Scott’s eyes to be dry on Friday, when he’ll be in the stands at Oracle Park for the Giants home opener, and his two sons will be sitting side by side in the bullpen in center field.

“Whatever you do, don’t put a camera on me,” he says, “Because I’ll be crying.”