3 October 2023
Carlos Correa will play. Royce Lewis might play. Byron Buxton seems unlikely to play.
The Twins held a team workout at Target Field on Monday and the health of the three stars was among the biggest topics of conversations as they prepare to host the Toronto Blue Jays in the best-of-three Wild Card Series beginning at 3:38 p.m. Tuesday. The team has until 10 a.m. Tuesday to submit its postseason roster.
“I don’t have every single one of those answers as we sit here right now,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Monday afternoon. “We have a pretty good idea, but we don’t have that completely figured out just because we still have more time to make decisions.”
Correa, who has been playing through plantar fasciitis since May, suffered a full thickness tear of his plantar fascia on Sept. 18. But two days later, after landing on the injured list, he proclaimed his confidence that he would be ready for the playoffs. He said Monday that a couple of days after feeling the pop in his foot, it started feeling better.
While the injury likely hampered his performance throughout the regular season — he hit .230 and finished with a 94 OPS+, well below his career average of 124 — the shortstop has a well-earned reputation for thriving in October.
“It was tough to deal with, but I feel a lot better now. I feel ready to go in these playoffs, and that’s all that matters,” Correa said. “When you go into the regular season, and the reason why they brought me here was first, you want to win the division. We did that. So, now you throw the numbers out the window and the season starts. This is the season that matters, so it’s time to go.”
Lewis does not seem to have the same amount of confidence in his readiness. A day after Correa left a game early because of his foot, the rookie strained his hamstring during an at-bat.
His hamstring, Lewis said, feels “the same, really.” He tested it out Monday, hitting in the cage and then later participating in the team workout.
“Progressively, a little better each day but it’s not like significant to where I got a big smile on my face like I know secretly I’m going to be locked in and balling out,” he said. “We’ll see where we’re at.”
Lewis said he has yet to run at 100 percent because it has been too difficult. But if he gets to a level where the Twins feel comfortable, they could opt to let him serve as their designated hitter and not send him out to play third base.
As for Buxton, who has been on the injured list since early August, he was not seen on the field during the team’s workout on Monday.
He initially was placed on the injured list with a hamstring strain, but during a rehab assignment in St. Paul in late August, the Twins sent him out to play center field for the first time in more than a year and he aggravated his knee. After receiving a cortisone shot, he played in two more rehab games before the Triple-A season ended.
“At this stage, that decision is going to be made a little bit more broadly around readiness, how it fits on a roster, what it looks like, ultimately for us, going into (Tuesday),” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “We’ll make that call in the morning.”
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