Isiah Kiner-Falefa is grateful to the Twins, and he's got one good reason.

"That'll definitely be on [the back of] my baseball card — 'I was a Twin for a couple of hours,'" the Yankees shortstop said. "That's a cool 'Fun Fact.'"

OK, two good reasons.

“To get traded twice, it made me feel good that two teams wanted me.”
Isiah Kiner-Falefa

The more obvious one, the 27-year-old Hawaii native said, is that the Twins rescued him from an unhappy, uncomfortable roster situation in Texas. Just before baseball shut down for a three-month lockout, the Rangers invested half a billion dollars in a pair of shortstops, Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The incumbent shortstop was left to wonder if he was going to be forced to move to third base or worse, stuck on the bench.

"I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know my role. It was a weird situation," Kiner-Falefa said. "For [the Twins] to get me out of that, it meant a lot to me. I'm very thankful. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them."

"Here," as he spoke, was the visitors clubhouse at Target Field; actually, the Twins originally intended for him to inhabit the home clubhouse. But shortly after trading Mitch Garver to Texas to acquire him on March 12, the Yankees called. A day later — shortly after he completed the Twins' physical exam — he had been traded for a second time.

"I met everybody, I unpacked, I went to the hotel" in Fort Myers, Fla., Kiner-Falefa said. "I got the call about 11 that night. I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was about the physical or something. Any time you get the call from the GM that late at night, it's something serious."

But now he's found a home in New York at his favorite position, and the Twins, utilizing the budget space they gained by packaging Josh Donaldson with Kiner-Falefa, wound up with free agent shortstop Carlos Correa.

"To get traded twice, it made me feel good that two teams wanted me," Kiner-Falefa said.

"We fully brought [Kiner-Falefa] in expecting him to be our shortstop. Obviously things change," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "He's doing all right for himself. There are a lot of people in the game that are big fans of his."

Tuneup for Ryan

Joe Ryan, perhaps the Twins' most effective starter this season, will make a rehab start for Class AAA St. Paul on Thursday, Baldelli said, his first game action since testing positive for COVID-19 on May 25.

"We think he's past the point of being able to just return," Baldelli said of Ryan, who owns a 2.28 ERA in eight starts. "He just needs to get the work — his arm, his body, cardio."

Josh Winder, on the injured list because of a shoulder impingement since May 21, will start for the Saints on Friday. Both righthanders could return to the Twins' roster next week.

The news isn't as good for reliever Cody Stashak, who will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery in the near future. It's the third consecutive shortened season for Stashak, who has totaled only 47 innings in that time. He appeared in 11 games with a 3.86 ERA this year.

Etc.

  • Kenta Maeda has concluded the Fort Myers portion of his rehab from elbow surgery nine months ago, and will remain in Minneapolis until he is ready to begin throwing to live hitters. "I'm happy to be back, seeing the guys, to simply be around with them," said Maeda, who hopes to throw off a mound in about two weeks. "Just to be able to continue the same program at the big-league stadium gets me going." But he declined to predict whether he will pitch for the Twins in 2022.
  • Correa was removed from the COVID-19 list and inserted into the starting lineup as the designated hitter on Wednesday. To make room, the Twins returned Jermaine Palacios to St. Paul.
  • Righthander Jorge Alcala, on the 60-day injured list because of elbow inflammation, experienced stiffness in his elbow after his rehab appearance in Fort Myers on June 1, and his program has been temporarily paused, the Twins said.
  • The Twins designated righthander Juan Minaya for assignment and restored Jharel Cotton to the roster from St. Paul. Cotton, who has been up and down between the majors and minors three times this season, has an 0.93 ERA in 9⅔ innings for the Twins. Minaya allowed six runs in 6⅓ innings this year. The Twins elected to keep righthander Cole Sands on the roster, and Baldelli said the current plan is for the rookie to make at least one more start.