The Minnesota Twins outfielder injured his ankle during the Tampa Bay Rays series and will likely be on the shelf through the All-Star break.
The Minnesota Twins have sent a bunch of players to the injured list in recent weeks, but it was a fate that the team was hoping to avoid with Eddie Rosario. After the Twins’ left fielder sprained his ankle on Wednesday night, the team felt that they could survive a couple days until Rosario could recover.
Unfortunately, the Twins have embarked on two marathon games in the past nine games, leaving the team in a major roster crunch ahead of their series with the Chicago White Sox. With the Twins needing as many healthy bodies as possible, the team placed Rosario on the 10-day injured list on Friday afternoon.
The injury comes at a tough time for Rosario as he was making a final push for the American League All-Star team. Before getting injured, the 27-year old had gone 6-for-7 at the plate in two games against the Rays and raised his season line to .282/.312/.529 with 20 HR and 60 RBI.
However, the Twins are probably doing the right thing here to let Rosario recover. By being placed on the injured list, he’ll be out through the All-Star break, meaning he’ll have a full two weeks to get right for the second half of the season.
The decision to place Rosario on the injured list couldn’t have been easy as the Twins have been fighting a slew of injuries over the past couple of weeks. Fellow outfielder Byron Buxton has been slow to recover from a wrist contusion, but MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park reported that his return from the injured list is close.
With Marwin Gonzalez and Willians Astudillo remaining on the injured list, the list of available outfielders for the Twins is paper thin, which has led the team to place Luis Arraez in the outfield and call up LaMonte Wade Jr. who will make his major league debut against the White Sox on Friday night.
The Twins did receive some good news on the injury front as Ehire Adrianza was activated from the injured list to replace Rosario. The utility infielder should come in handy with Arraez temporarily in the outfield and was hitting .379 in his previous nine games before being placed on the injured list.
With the Twins also needing pitchers, they optioned Zack Littell to Triple-A Rochester and replaced him with Lewis Thorpe. The 23-year old right hander has been on the prospect radar for the Twins since signing an international deal back in 2013, but his progress was slowed down after missing the 2015 and 2016 seasons due to elbow issues.
This season hasn’t gone great for Thorpe as he’s gone 3-4 with a 5.71 ERA in Rochester, but with the depleted state of the Twins bullpen, they’ll take any arm they can get.