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Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Cole Sands lands on injured list just days after returning from injury
- Story byPioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
- Cole Sands lands on injured list just days after returning from injury
Cole Sands ' stay on the active roster was a short one.
The Twins' reliever was dealt yet another setback, landing on the injured list on Tuesday with a right elbow strain just days after returning from nearly three months on the injured list on Sunday.
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Sands pitched just once after returning, and it didn't go well. He gave up five runs and got only one out in the Twins' 11-8 victory over the Athletics on Sunday.
"I think everybody who was there the other day just saw the ball was not coming out of his hand the way that he wanted it to, the way that we wanted it to. And then just sitting down and talking to him after the game, it just doesn't seem like he's in the spot that we need to be," manager Derek Shelton said.
Sands was sent for a CT scan on Tuesday, and Shelton said Sands would meet with Dr. Chris Camp, the team's director of medical high performance, after which they would have a better sense of what will come next for him.
General manager Jeremy Zoll said his ulnar collateral ligament is not the issue, but it is possible that Sands may need to have surgery.
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"Obviously feel for him given how long he was trying to come back from it," Zoll said. "He was hoping, we were hoping he was over the hump but unfortunately he isn't there."
The reliever was first placed on the injured list May 2 with a right forearm strain, and this is believed to be connected to that. About a month after first going down, Sands was inching towards a return and had started a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Saints before suffering a setback.
It wasn't until more than a month later — July 7 — that the Twins sent Sands back on another rehab assignment, and he pitched in six games for both the Florida Complex League Twins and the Saints before he returned to the majors.
It's a tough break both for Sands and the Twins, who were expecting him to be among their late-inning options entering this season. Sands got the first save opportunity this season and had been pitching in the late innings for the Twins. But it hasn't worked out to plan: He threw 11 2/3 innings and had a 4.63 earned-run average in March/April before his injury.
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"It's an unfortunate situation," Shelton said. "Take the baseball side out of this, you feel for the human being. … He started the year pitching in high-leverage situations for us. Had the injury. Grinded his way back through the rehab, grinded back through rehab games."
The injury comes just days before the trade deadline — it's set for Monday evening at 5 p.m. CDT — and the Twins' clearest need even before this news was bullpen help.
Festa to have surgery
After a visit with a specialist in Atlanta last week, Twins pitcher David Festa is set for surgery on Wednesday with Dr. Camp, which will be both an arthroscopic procedure on his right shoulder to address an impingement and a pec release to address his neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome symptoms, Zoll said.
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The Twins will have a clearer sense of a timeline post-operation, but Zoll said he was not sure yet if it would cut into next season.
"It's not a situation where we're anticipating the surgery has some 12 or 18-month rehab, but we'll see what (Wednesday) brings," Zoll said.
Briefly
To fill Sands' spot on the roster, the Twins recalled Jack Anderson, who was optioned to Triple-A on Sunday. … Joe Ryan is set to start Wednesday, days after his start was pushed back due to arm fatigue. Ryan was originally scheduled to start Sunday's series finale against the Athletics. He has not pitched since last Monday in Cleveland , when he gave up a major league record-tying six home runs. … Outfielder Emmanuel Rodriguez, one of the organization's top prospects, began a rehab assignment with Single-A Fort Myers on Tuesday. Rodriguez has been out since early May after tearing a ligament in his thumb, an injury that required surgery.
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