Twins make flurry of roster moves

After last night’s 17-inning dance with the Boston Red Sox, the Minnesota Twins figured, “Hey, let’s make about 17 roster moves as well, because why not?” and so they did as first mentioned by Senior Communications Director Dustin Morse on the Twitter.

First, let’s talk about players (hopefully) temporarily departing the current Twins roster:

• Marwin Gonzalez is hitting the 10-day Injured List with an apparently hamstring issue. There’s no word as to how he injured his hamstring, but Max Kepler did bat for him in the sixth inning of last night’s game, which probably explains that move.
• Blake Parker has been placed on the Family Medical Leave list and there’s no additional information regarding that move. Hopefully all will be well with Parker and his family, whatever the issue may be.
• Adalberto Mejia has been moved to the 60-day Injured List and therefore not on the 40-man roster. He was placed on the 10-day IL with a right calf strain on May 2 and had been on a rehab assignment in Fort Myers but there has apparently been some sort of setback that would trigger this move.

Now we’ll talk about the players that have been called up:

• LA TORTUGA IS BACK! Willians Astudillo has been re-called from Rochester, where he’s been tearing it up and then some. Since his demotion, he’s played in nine games, hitting .526/.525/.763 with three homers and 11 RBI.
• The contract of Sean Poppen has been selected and he has been added to the 40- and 25-man rosters. “Who is Sean Poppen?” you ask. Carlson_MNTwins has the deets for you: “Sean Poppen is a 25 year old right handed pitcher who has a 1.55 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 29.1 K%, 10.3 BB% in 29.0 innings at AAA this year. Low 90s fastball that can touch around 93-94. He throws strikes and his backup pitches are his slider and changeup.” He looks to be mainly a starter in the minors, but I assume he will take a seat in the bullpen for some long-man roles in the interim. He will wear number 71. I have also accidentally written “Poopen” instead of “Poppen” many times already. Sorry, Sean.

There you have it. 17 roster moves following a 17-inning game. It’s pretty exciting to have Astudillo back and a fresh arm in the pen to prove himself. Hopefully everything will work out for Gonzalez, Parker, and Mejía.