Twins place Miguel Sano on the DL with strained hamstring

Twins third baseman Miguel Sano has missed the last three games due a hamstring injury, and now it looks like he’s going to miss even more. The team announced today that they are placing Sano on the 10-day DL retroactive to April 28th, so he will be first eligible to return on May 8th.

The move doesn’t come as much of a surprise, however, considering Paul Molitor told reporters yesterday that Sano’s recovery was moving slowly.

To replace Sano, the Twins selected the contract of infielder Gregorio Petit. Petit, 33, has been one of those fringe major league guys, having played some for the Athletics, Astros, Yankees, and Angels since 2008. As one might expect, he’s not really the greatest, but he can certainly be called up to fill in a spot and then later be DFAed, which it sounds like the Twins will eventually do here. Petit is hitting .293/.323/.362 over 17 games in Triple-A so far in 2018, playing primarily shortstop, though he’s also played second base and third base in the past.

Of course, Petit was not on the 40-man roster, so to make room for him the Twins DFAed lefty Dietrich Enns. Enns, 26, was one of the pitchers the Twins got from the Yankees in the Jaime Garcia trade last year. Though he appeared in two games for the Twins in 2017, he’s mostly just been toiling away from in Triple-A. He’s started four games down there this year, posting a 4.50 ERA with 11 strikeouts and 11 walks over 20.0 innings. Either the front office doesn’t see him as a major-league caliber pitcher, or they think he might pass through waivers unclaimed. Heck, it could be both.

Obviously, the injury to Sano here is a bit disappointing, especially when the Twins are also missing star outfielder Byron Buxton, who doesn’t seem to have a return date. Hopefully Sano isn’t gone too long, but I’ve seen some players miss over a month with hamstring issues.

So... can we just replace Sano’s hamstring with titanium or...?