Rundown: Twins Playing It Safe With Sano This Time

Sano suffered a severe cut on his right foot in January. A teammate on his Dominican Winter League team slipped and spiked him him in the Achilles, requiring 12 stitches. On Wednesday night’s Twins Hot Stove Show with host Kris Atteberry, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli relayed this update on Sano:

“Miguel is actually doing well,” Baldelli said. “His small wound is healed up, it’s getting to the point where we’re getting ready to revisit an appointment with the specialist just to get clearance to get him out there on the field. He’s been at the field, he’s been taking part in light activity until we get this clearance. It should be here in the next day or two and we should be able to progress. He’s ready to go, we’re really looking forward to seeing him actually take the field and I don’t think we’re far away from that.”

While the stitches have been removed at this point and the cut is healing, it sounds like it'll be awhile yet before Sano hits the field. Betsy Helfand of the Pioneer Press reported Thursday that Sano is expected to remain in the boot for another week. The team seems concerned about the potential of the wound reopening.

Sano appears to be in great shape — he’s still able to do cardio and weight training with his upper body — and he got some extra reps in at the plate during winter ball. So again, why rush? I love this course of action the Twins are taking so far. The worst-case scenario with an extremely safe timeline is that Sano doesn’t have enough time to get ready for Opening Day.

So what?

Put him on the Injured List and let him get up to speed with a rehab assignment in the minors. Stuff like this is exactly why you have guys like Marwin Gonzalez and Willians Astudillo around. It’s a lot more important to have a healthy Sano in the fold for the long haul than it is to get him into the Opening Day lineup.

Rush Sano back and who knows what could happen. It could be as severe as the cut reopening or as simple as discomfort causing Sano to fall into some bad mechanical habits due to favoring that foot. Of course, the most difficult element to all this is there’s no way of knowing the perfect timeline for him. I’d bet if it was up to Miguel he’d already be out there, so you can’t really take him for his word on the recovery process.

It’ll be a situation they’ll have to continue to monitor, but I’ve personally had enough of the Twins pushing Sano and Byron Buxton back from injuries. Or I guess allowing those two to push themselves back from injury, whichever the case may be.

Remember when Sano shattered his leg in August of 2017 and played the next day? Even after the team identified the injury, they allowed him to return for three games in late September. That injury was bad enough he’s going to have to live with a titanium rod in his left shin for the rest of his life.

If Sano and Buxton are as important to this organization as the front office makes them out to be then they’d better make sure to put them in the best positions possible to succeed. It appears that’s exactly what’s happening with Sano’s current injury. So far, at least.

Rocco on Spring Games

“I think they’re really helpful. These are spring training games, but I take them serious,” said Baldelli on this week’s Hot Stove Show. “I think about them like they’re real games. What would we do in the season during these situations? I think taking advantage of this month is very important for me and for the whole staff.”

“You might not actually make the decision that you would make and actually put it into play, but I think talking about all the different scenarios and situations — what we want to do going forward and the decisions that I’d like to make once we hit March 28 — I think those are the discussions we have during the games and these are the discussions we have all day long over here.”

Free Agent Signings

Some of the biggest names left on the free agent market signed Thursday. The Blue Jays scooped up both Bud Norris and Clay Buchholz. Oh yeah, Bryce Harper signed with the Phillies too.

Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel remain unsigned, however, and the Twins are still being loosely connected to Kimbrel.

https://twitter.com/JimBowdenGM/status/1101220841809940482

Spring Highlights

I’ll leave you with some recent highlights from spring action. First up, Martin Perez’s first outing in a Twins uniform:

https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1099784152411455488

Here’s Brent Rooker’s blast from Wednesday afternoon: https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1100868879855816709

Action from Stephen Gonsalves:

https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1100883660985778176

Some Lewis Thorpe:

https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1100892481506426880

And finally, a nice double from Luke Raley:

https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1101276744148008961