Miguel Sano has a moderate strain of his left hamstring, and Twins General Manager Terry Ryan said Friday that the right fielder will need longer than the minimum 15 days on the disabled list to recover.
"As big a guy as he is, you've got to be careful and make sure he's 100 percent when he comes back," Ryan said. "It's not going to be a 15-day ordeal."
A magnetic resonance imaging exam confirmed the strain, with manager Paul Molitor adding that there were signs of bleeding in the area, which he said is common. Sano will rest for few days, until the soreness subsides, before he begins therapy.
"It's all going to be trainers and maintenance and that stuff for a while before he can do anything with that leg," Ryan said. "It's got to settle down, and I don't know how long it will take."
Sano injured the hamstring Tuesday at Oakland and was promptly put on the DL. The Twins won't rush things with Sano, who is listed at 262 pounds.
"The good news is that it's not significant, so there was probably a little bit of slight stretching or minor tearing," Molitor said of Sano, who is batting .235 with 11 home runs and 27 RBI. "There's nothing significant in terms of us believing that it's going to be anything more than just trying to recover from a hamstring strain.
"The one factor being that his hamstrings are different than most other people's."
The one challenge in recovering from a hamstring strain is that it's difficult to simulate game conditions during the process. A player can take batting practice, run the bases and chase after fly balls before games, but the stopping, starting and dealing with periods of little action then suddenly a lot of action can aggravate the injury. Sano likely will head out on a minor league rehabilitation assignment as a final test before returning to the Twins.
