WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Imagine you decide to change up your workout routine. After months of not doing any lat pulldowns, you decide, for some odd reason, to do 10,000 of them.
That’s how Pablo López described the soreness that he was feeling after being diagnosed with a Grade 2 teres major strain, which will keep him sidelined for the next eight to 12 weeks.
“It’s like a weird soreness, which is why I was hopeful early on,” López said. “It just feels like it’s sore.”
Because he didn’t hear a pop, because he wasn’t experiencing immense pain, López — who left Tuesday night’s game with the injury — held out hope that the results of his magnetic resonance imaging, taken on Wednesday might yield more positive results.
“I hate it,” the starter said. “It’s not what I want to be dealing with. It’s not what I want to hear. Every time you get the game taken away from you, it’s really hard. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
López has been told that he can’t throw for at least four weeks. He has to wait for the discomfort to clear before he can do anything over head. Wednesday, he said he did a “crazy lower-body workout” ans plans to spend the time doing cardio and leg workouts to keep up his conditioning.
Until his teres major, a muscle that attaches the scapula to the humerus, is healed, he’s will be a full-on lefty, he joked.
“We’re just going to aim at getting back on the field in the most responsible fashion and let him heal up fully,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But I truly believe he’s going to be out there pitching for us, probably not at the very end of the year. We’re talking like he’ll be able to pitch significantly for us. We’re going to stay optimistic and let him do his thing.”
López is hoping that’s closer to eight weeks than 12, though he knows he can’t rush his recovery.
Rotation-mate Joe Ryan suffered the same injury last year in a game on Aug. 7. He did not return during the regular season, though he said he might have been healthy enough to return in a relief role in mid-October had the Twins made the playoffs.
“It stinks. He’s so good. He prepares so well,” Ryan said. “He’s one of the best teammates I’ve been around as far as that goes and what he does off the field. It’s tough to see.”
It’s a tough blow for the Twins’ rotation, which has been among baseball’s best this season. López has been a big reason why, with a 2.82 earned-run average across his 11 starts. To fill his place in the rotation, the Twins called up David Festa, who started on Thursday and gave up eight runs in 3⅔ innings against the Athletics.
And it’s a tough blow for López personally, who said the biggest challenge won’t be his shoulder but his mind.
“The mental side is what’s going to be eating me alive for a while. It’s just that itch, knowing that every day that passes is games I’m not participating in,” López said. “So, the options are simple: I either choose to drown myself in tears of sorrow or I choose to power through, grow internally, grow physically, grow emotionally and just make sure that when the time comes, that I will be able to come back.”
Correa sits
Carlos Correa has dealt with back issues in the past. But this was different, he said.
The current soreness is little higher, in an area of his back that has never bothered him. He hasn’t changed his routine. The only thing that has changed, he said, is slipping every time he took a swing because of the dirt in the Sutter Health Park batter’s box.
Correa was scratched from Wednesday’s lineup and did not play on Thursday, but he projected optimism that he would be back when the team returned home.
“Every swing that I slip at the plate, I feel my back compensating to stabilize me throughout the motion,” Correa said. “It’s just discomfort in my middle back and I don’t want to make it worse, where I miss months of the season (for) two games. We’re taking the smart option of taking these two days (off) so I can go back and play at home.”
Briefly
Reliever Danny Coulombe, on the injured list with a left forearm extensor strain, is scheduled to make a rehab outing with Triple-A St. Paul on Friday. … The Chicago White Sox announced on Thursday longtime owner Jerry Reinsdorf and billionaire Justin Ishbia have entered a “long-term investment agreement that establishes a framework for Ishbia to obtain a future controlling interest in the White Sox.” Ishbia had been among the interested potential buyers for the Twins but shifted his interest to his home-town White Sox earlier this year.
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