I take a couple games off and all hell breaks loose.
Shocker No. 1 was when I entered the ballpark and saw Devin Smeltzer heading for the clubhouse. Shocker No. 2 was when it was announced that Smeltzer was starting today against the Royals. No. 3 came when it was learned that Sam Dyson was placed on the injured list with biceps tendonitis.
(Shocker No. 4 was walking into Rocco Baldelli's office and discovering that it had been completely remodeled into some sort of contemporary cool/Bradley Cooper's den type of room).
Phil Miller didn't warn me of any of this.
Seriously, who saw this coming? Dyson apparently reported some soreness after his outing on Friday, so the Twins want to be proactive and get him as close to 100 percent as possible. Then Baldelli said that Dyson has been pitching with it for a while, which set off all sorts of alarms. But the Twins don't appear to be ready to file a grievance against the Giants for shipping them damaged goods.
"Every pitcher goes through some maintenance through the course of the year," Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey said. "Sam was pitching right up until the deadline and had been dealing with some soreness that probably a lot of the pitchers in that room are going to deal with. He didn't have any open injuries, and from our medical review and otherwise, we felt good about where he was. This is something that has probably popped up for him more recently, and I'm not saying just the days he's been with us, but something that he had to work through."
Dyson struggled in his first two appearances with the Twins since being dealt from San Francisco on Wednesday.
Dyson, Byron Buxton and Michael Pineda have landed on the IL since the team has returned from Miami. Rough weekend.
