Twins eye postseason as Correa, other stars return

MINNEAPOLIS -- For only the 18th time this season, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was able to submit a lineup card that had the names of Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa all listed in the Twins’ starting nine of Saturday's 11-1 loss to the Reds.

There’s no way to know how often he’ll be able to do that in what remains of the regular season, because neither Buxton and Correa are at full health -- but this is the point in the season where that no longer matters. With Correa formally activated from the IL on Saturday, the fate of the Twins’ season will be determined by as close to their full-strength lineup as they can muster.

“Realistically, I’m not going to play every game from now on, right?” Correa said. “I’m going to miss some games here and there. We have a great team with Rocco and the athletic trainers. We’re going to know how to manage this going forward, but we want to be out there as much as possible and get ready for this late run.”

Correa missed 51 games with the plantar fasciitis in his right heel that lingered far beyond what he’d initially expected when it first presented just before the All-Star break.

Ideally, yes, the Twins would have wanted Correa to take a rehab assignment, given all the time he’s missed -- but as was the case with Buxton’s activation from the IL on Friday, the Twins determined that the live at-bats Correa saw against Class A pitchers at Target Field had to be enough given where they are in the season.

“We ran out of days. We just didn't have enough days,” Baldelli said. “We’re running out of days for the regular season, and he didn't want to waste any more days. He just wanted to come back.”

There will be a ramp-up period as Buxton and Correa adjust back to big league pitching -- though Buxton looked fine as he homered in his first game back on Friday. There will be an evaluation of Buxton’s ailing right hip and Correa’s right foot every day to determine their availability to play in that day's game.

Both Buxton (.275 average, .867 OPS) and Correa (.308 average, .897 OPS) were in the midst of huge offensive seasons when they were sidelined by their injuries -- and all the Twins can do at this point is to count on their stars to give them even some semblance of that level of play as they feel out their returns to the team.

“I felt like I was at my best right before the injury,” Correa said. “That’s one of the things that hurt the most. I wanted to see the season play out the way it was going, but at the same time, the feel and the thought process and the routine are still going to be there.”

But now, there are no more excuses, as the lineup is about as whole as it will be. The Twins are still missing Max Kepler -- who has struggled for much of the summer -- but once their right fielder is back, that will be it, and they now simply need to go play themselves into the postseason.

“I mean, this is what we were hoping for,” Baldelli said. “Obviously, every game we’re hoping for this, but we finally have these guys back. Now we have to work them back into shape as quickly as possible so they can go out there and play like they can play.”