Twins’ injury recovery news on Royce Lewis and Willi Castro is trending positively

CLEVELAND – Royce Lewis and Willi Castro will be ready to play for the Twins soon, head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta said Monday, but Matt Wallner and Luke Keaschall will need several weeks to heal.

Hey, going .500 looks pretty good to the Twins these days.

Lewis is about two hours away from his Twins teammates this week, playing for Class AAA St. Paul in Columbus, Ohio. He will serve as designated hitter during the Saints’ doubleheader against the Clippers on Tuesday, then play all nine innings at third base Wednesday.

“We’ll re-evaluate where he is on Thursday, how he’s feeling, and we’ll make a decision on what he’s going to do through the weekend,” Paparesta said. “One thing we have to remember is … when you miss six weeks, there’s a certain number of at-bats you need to get. He’s going to need to play a little bit.”

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Still, Paparesta said, Lewis’ progress since suffering a moderate hamstring strain during training camp is substantial, and “he seems like he’s feeling pretty good right now.”

Same for Castro, who on Tuesday will take batting practice from the left side, which is the side that the switch hitter’s oblique injury was hampering.

“We did some testing on him today, which was good. He’s doing all baseball activities, including infield, throwing, outfield work, running,” Paparesta said. “I probably need three or four more days before [we know if] he’s going to be ready on the day [he’s eligible to be] activated,” which is Thursday.

Wallner and Keaschall, on the other hand, are still at the start of a long recovery process.

After consulting with a surgeon who repaired his left wrist a few years ago, Keaschall now believes he can avoid surgery on his fractured right ulna bone, though he will undergo weekly X-rays to make sure the fracture doesn’t require a plate to heal correctly.

“So, we are looking at weeks here. After about a month, we’ll have a better sense of where we’re at with him,” Paparesta said of the rookie infielder, who is wearing a soft splint to keep the arm immobile. “It’s probably going to be a couple months before he’s back into playing games.”

Keaschall’s treatment includes twice-a-day hyperbaric chamber stints and a bone stimulator to help speed up healing.

Wallner’s moderate-to-serious hamstring injury was made worse by the fact that the outfielder has never suffered a similar injury and didn’t recognize it for what it was.

“He’s never had a leg injury before, didn’t know what was going on. He thought he had a cramp,” Paparesta said. “Two days later, it looks black and blue and it’s a pretty significant tear,” one that will take “weeks” to heal.

Wallner jogged on a treadmill for the first time Monday and has played some light catch. When the Twins return home next week, he’ll be re-evaluated, and perhaps given permission to do increase his running.

For all the injuries the Twins have suffered this season, no player has suffered more than righthander Matt Canterino, who hasn’t pitched a regular-season game since July 2022 — exactly 1,003 days ago Monday — and is out for the season again after another shoulder surgery during training camp.

But neither the team nor the player seem ready to give up on Canterino, who has yet to pitch above Class AA. On Monday, the Twins signed the 27-year-old former second-round pick to a minor league contract for this year and next.

Kody Clemens, who joined the Twins over the weekend, is with his third major league team, and each time, the infielder said, he hears stories from coaches and club officials about his father, Roger, a seven-time Cy Young winner who ranks third in baseball history in strikeouts. But Rocco Baldelli didn’t mention him when he welcomed Clemens to the team.

There’s a reason for that.

“My record is not good,” Baldelli said. “His dad’s record is very good.”

No kidding. Rocco vs. the Rocket was very one-sided: They faced each other seven times, all in 2003, and Baldelli went 0-for-7 with six (of Clemens’ 4,672) strikeouts.