Minneapolis – The Minnesota Twins will be getting one of their relievers back in the near future. Before Monday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, Twins manager Derek Shelton shared that right-handed pitcher Cole Sands will begin a rehab assignment on Tuesday with Triple-A St. Paul.
Sands, 28, has been out since April 29 with a right forearm strain. He had a 4.63 ERA in 12 appearances before being shut down with the injury. He’s scheduled to throw one inning of relief in the St. Paul Saints’ Tuesday night game.
The news comes at a good time for the Twins, who have been dealt two additional pitching injuries in the last five days, as LHP Kendry Rojas went on the IL on May 29 with left elbow inflammation and starter Bailey Ober went on the IL Sunday with the same injury in his throwing arm.
Ober had an MRI on Sunday, and the Twins expect to have the results postgame on Monday.
Sands had been pitching in Fort Myers while the team was on a 10-game road trip. He didn’t pitch in games, but kept building up in bullpen sessions. As things stand, he feels close to returning and is excited to see what will come with the upcoming rehab outings.
“I’d say the progression has been pretty smooth, good and bad days, like any rehab process – that’s how it’s gonna be,” Sands said on Monday. “For the most part, everything’s been progressing really well. Threw a live (bullpen) the past week in Fort Myers. It went really well, bounced back great. So, I’ll go throw tomorrow and kind of see where we’re at.”
With plenty of downtime in his rehab process, Sands has been using it as an ‘extended spring training’ of sorts, retooling and refining his mechanics. It’s also been an opportune time to see what has been the root of what could have led to the forearm strain.
“A lot of it kinda goes hand in hand,” said Sands. “I think mechanics can be a little out of whack and can put pressure on the arm. I don’t know if that’s what was happening, but it could be a byproduct, for sure.”
Jeffers beginning to recover from hamate surgery
Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers remains in an upbeat mood despite being on the IL following hamate surgery with Dr. Steven Shin in Los Angeles. Jeffers had the stitches from the surgery removed on Saturday and has been throwing each day since.
“Stitches are out, and we’re doing range of motion, strengthening exercises and kind of working through the normal course of the rehab there,” said Twins GM Jeremy Zoll on the next steps for Jeffers’ plan.
“I went to a good surgeon; the team in there, and the training room, had done a lot of these,” Jeffers said. “They know what they’re doing. I’ve got a lot of trust and faith in the progression we’re going to go through to get me ready to go.”
It’s already been two weeks since Jeffers broke his hamate bone, and it could be another four to six weeks until he returns to the Twins lineup. Since it was Jeffers’ first time with the injury, he reached out to Minnesota’s top prospect, Walker Jenkins, who broke his hamate in high school, for guidance on rest and recovery.
“[Jenkins] said he was back in games in three weeks,” said Jeffers. “He said, ‘Don’t follow my lead.’ No, there’s a lot [of] guys that have had it, and different things worked for them; it’s so common now. If you look around this locker room now, there’s five or six guys that have had it done in their career.”
As things stand, Jeffers’ original six-to-eight-week recovery timeline lines up to get back into game action on a rehab assignment the week of June 22. However, the Twins will continue to evaluate his progress day by day before deciding on the official start date of his rehab.
“Obviously, I’ve never been through this, but I feel really good where I’m at, just from how I feel and how the early stages of the strengthening have gone,” Jeffers said. “I do feel really good where we’re at.”
