Darin Mastroianni still has a boot on his ankle and it figures to be a couple more weeks before he's ready to rejoin the Twins. To make that room on the roster, there are a couple of scenarios that have seemed likely:

One, rookie Aaron Hicks continues to struggle as the every day center fielder, and gets sent back to the minors for a tuneup. That would give Mastroianni most of the work in center ... for as long as he could hold the job.

Two, Mastroianni returns and the other rookie outfielder, Oswaldo Arcia, goes back to Class AAA Rochester for "more seasoning."

There's also a chance that neither a departure of Hicks nor Arcia serves as the answer for a Mastroianni addition to the roster.

Hicks had the best game of his 19 in the big leagues on Saturday. He threw out a runner from fairly deep right-center, he made a stupendous diving catch and he drove in two runs with his first extra base-hit of the season (a double from his right side in the eighth inning).

Arcia has a big booster in manager Ron Gardenhire. The baseball boss, Terry Ryan, always gets his way in arguments over young players and the need for at-bats. That's why you see Gardenhire putting Arcia in the lineup on a daily basis -- both for his potential contributions, and to make moot the argument that Arcia has to go back to Rochester to regular at-bats.

"This kid really swings the bat," the manager said after Saturday's 7-2 victory over the Rangers. "You're not going to hear him complaining about this being a big ballpark. He's just going to do his best to hit the ball farther."

Here's another scenario for the future roster decision on Mastroianni:

Trevor Plouffe continues to hack it up at third base and is moved into the Wilkin Ramirez role -- extra righthanded hitter -- and Hicks, Arcia and Mastroianni all wind up on the active roster later next month.