MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Twins placed starting pitcher Joe Ryan on the 15-day injured list on Friday with a significantly strained muscle in his throwing shoulder, an ill-timed setback entering a critical homestand against two division rivals and primary competitors for postseason spots.
Ryan has a Grade 2 strain of the teres major, a thick, flat muscle that runs from the shoulder blade to the upper arm, the Twins announced before beginning a four-game series against the AL Central-leading Cleveland Guardians. Manager Rocco Baldelli said Ryan would be sidelined for “weeks to months” but stopped short of declaring him done for the season.
The right-hander, who is 7-7 with a 3.60 ERA, 23 walks and 147 strikeouts in 135 innings over 23 starts, was removed from his most recent turn on Wednesday when he felt discomfort after throwing a pitch in the third inning.
“Yeah, it is a punch in the gut,” Baldelli said. "It’s going to need time to heal up, and he’ll do everything he can to get himself right and get back, but this is going to be a little while.”
Ryan will seek a second opinion before the Twins reveal a timetable for his recovery, but with a little more than seven weeks in the regular season the window is tight.
Starting pitcher Chris Paddack has been out for three weeks with a strained forearm, and his return is “not right around the corner,” Baldelli said, though president of baseball operations Derek Falvey added later that the right-hander was close to beginning a throwing program with the goal of returning for more regular season action.
The Twins, who ultimately passed on the high prices for starting pitching before the trade deadline last month, now have two rookies in their rotation indefinitely with David Festa and Simeon Woods Richardson trying to do their part behind Pablo López and Bailey Ober.
“When you get to a deadline and things don’t work out the way you want, you know you’re going to have to lean on your internal guys,” Falvey said. “We believe a lot of our internal group is capable of stepping into these roles and can play a role for us down the stretch.”
Louie Varland was recalled from Triple-A St. Paul to start the second game of the doubleheader on Friday against the Guardians, who took a 3½-game lead on the Twins in the division race into the series.
“You’re never going to be like, ‘We’re going to make a trade because someone is going to go down,’ or, ‘We’re not going to make a trade because everyone is going to stay healthy,'” López said. “Obviously, hindsight is easier than foresight. It definitely makes it a little tougher. Teams that get people at the deadline and go through this, they’re able to hold off a little longer.”
The Twins also placed rookie infielder Brooks Lee on the 10-day injured list with right biceps tendinitis. Infielder Kyle Farmer, who has missed 18 games with a strained right shoulder, was activated early from his rehab assignment to replace Lee.
Reliever Scott Blewett was promoted from Triple-A St. Paul, and reliever Brock Stewart was transferred to the 60-day injured list after the diagnosis that he needs arthroscopic shoulder surgery that will end his injury-ruined season.
The Twins got center fielder Byron Buxton back in the lineup on Friday from a three-game absence due to a back injury stemming from a catch he made while colliding with the wall. But All-Star shortstop Carlos Correa, whose absence because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot is approaching one month, remained sidelined with no rehab assignment yet on the schedule.
“I don’t know that we’re going to get to a place where he’s going to feel 100%, but you’re at a stage of the season where I’m not sure how many guys out there are actually 100%," Falvey said. "I think Carlos is going to figure out the right time for him. We just trust him so much around how he feels, what he can play through, what he can navigate through."
Correa said he's begun sprinting without significant pain, but he's waiting to see how the foot reacts in the coming days to determine if he's ready for the next step.
“We were hoping I would come back earlier than it’s taken," Correa said. "At the same time, we’re doing what we can control and we’re working as hard as possible every single day to get back on the field. There is nothing I want more to be out there with the guys again. I’m looking forward to that day.”
The Twins will get no sympathy over the state of their rotation from the Guardians, who placed starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco on the 15-day injured list with a strained left hip on Friday. He'll rest for three or four days before resuming throwing, manager Stephen Vogt said.
Staff ace Shane Bieber is out for the season following elbow surgery. Tanner Bibee, who avoided the injured list after having his last start pushed back due to shoulder tightness, was cleared to start the series finale in Minnesota on Sunday.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Minnesota Twins' Austin Martin scores on a single hit by Brooks Lee during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)
Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Joe Ryan, right, reacts as he leaves with a team trainer after an injury during the third inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs in Chicago, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Joe Ryan throws against the Chicago Cubs during the first inning of a baseball game in Chicago, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
What's in a name change, after all?
The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.
But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”
Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.
There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.
“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”
But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?
“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."
As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.
A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.
In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.
“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.
“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”
Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)