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Minnesota Twins: Adalberto Mejia’s good start ends with disappointing injury

By Nate Palmer

CLEVELAND, OH - AUGUST 07: Adalberto Mejia #49 of the Minnesota Twins pitches against the Cleveland Indians during the second inning at Progressive Field on August 7, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Ron Schwane/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - AUGUST 07: Adalberto Mejia #49 of the Minnesota Twins pitches against the Cleveland Indians during the second inning at Progressive Field on August 7, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Ron Schwane/Getty Images) /
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Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Adalberto Mejia had a good start against the Indians before leaving the game early due to injury.

The Minnesota Twins are able to use the rest of their 2018 season to play potential spoiler to teams chasing playoff spots and to more importantly hold auditions for the 2019 roster. One of those players auditioning, Adalberto Mejia was off to a great start on Tuesday night before leaving the game after pitching five quality innings.

As Mejia struck out Jason Kipnis it seemed that as he finished his pitching motion he turned and the outfield camera caught him grimacing. In that motion and as he made his way to the dugout, we could see that Mejia was sort of grabbing at his arm. We found out in the middle of the game that Mejia was diagnosed with a strained left wrist.

Definitely not good news for a pitcher who has been pitching well and was going to see if he could get through at least six good innings of work and have success a third time through the Indians lineup Tuesday night.  Mejia’s final line was 5.0 innings pitched, one hit, one walk, and three strikeouts. Those are some very impressive numbers against a very good Indians lineup. It is Mejia’s second good start against the Indians in the last week as on August 1st he also went 5.0 innings and allowed one hit, three walks, and record three strikeouts.

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If Mejia has to miss a start it would seem likely that the Twins could finally give Stephen Gonsalves a chance to make his major league debut. Gonsalves has been pitching very well as of late for the Rochester Red Wings and currently owns a 7-3 record an 3.06 ERA in 17 games at Triple-A. It could also provide an opportunity for Fernando Romero to return to the Twins rotation.

Matt Belisle to DL

Matt Magill made his return from the paternity list after welcoming his son Maverick into the world. The move made to make room for Magill on the active roster was to move veteran reliever Matt Belisle to the disabled list with right knee chondromalacia. A quick google search reveals that the diagnosis is a sore meniscus.

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The first thing here is that it will be good to see Magill back on the mound as he auditions for a spot in the 2019 bullpen. The other is that Belisle will not be pitching for the Twins for a little while. It would feel a lot better if he would have simply been DFA’d as his presence on the Twins roster just does not make sense. It will be very frustrating if Belisle returns from the disabled list and costs one of the young bullpen arms their spot when there clearly isn’t much left for Belisle to do in Minnesota for the rest of 2018.

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