The Twins bullpen, which is already without Jhoan Duran and Caleb Thielbar to begin the season, will also be without its best offseason signing.
Justin Topa, the right-handed setup man acquired from Seattle in the Jorge Polanco trade, has a painful left knee and will be placed on the injured list, the organization reported Sunday.
“He wanted to pitch through it, but the more we looked at it, we decided to treat it and slow him down to knock it out. “We don’t want tendinitis to continue throughout the season,” said Derek Falvey, the Twins’ president of baseball operations. “We’re going to knock it out now, give him some downtime and ultimately build back up.”
The organization hopes that Topa, who appears to have incurred the injury while backing up a play at home plate on March 15, will miss only two weeks of the season. Still, the Twins’ late-inning bullpen is without three critical players.
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli admitted. “We’re going to have to answer some questions that we haven’t had to answer in a while.”
Brock Stewart and Griffin Jax are expected to offer some of the answers, but the Twins will need other pitchers to step up. Jay Jackson and Steven Okert, both new to the Twins bullpen, will see more late-inning work.
Thielbar’s absence suggests that rookie lefthander Kody Funderburk will join the squad, although Falvey and Baldelli indicated final roster choices have yet to be finalized.
“Some of the conversations might actually take place in Kansas City,” where the Twins open the season Thursday, Baldelli added. “There are no guarantees that everything will be wrapped up while we’re in Fort Myers.”
In part, this is due to the Twins’ diligent attention to the waiver wire and opt-out decisions, looking for prospective matches for their own squad.
“We have guys in camp who we think can do some of this, certainly fill some of these roles,” he said. “But it never hurts to keep an eye out for ways to build depth when you’re down a few players. We’d be doing it even if we didn’t have any injuries.”
Some of their remaining nonroster players, like righthander Daniel Duarte, who was grabbed off waivers from Texas last month, might fill in for the injury.
“Danny has accomplished everything you could have asked of him. “He’s done an excellent job throwing the ball over the plate,” Falvey said. “He now understands how to use his secondary pitches in the zone when necessary. That’s quite encouraging.
Falvey said Thielbar’s recovery from a left hamstring strain is progressing. The veteran lefthander threw a bullpen session on Sunday to keep his arm sharp while his leg heals.
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