Twins outfielder Trevor Larnach will undergo a bilateral surgical repair to address a core muscle strain, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey informed reporters (including Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press). Falvey estimated it’ll be six weeks before Larnach is ready to return to the major league team.
It’s a setback for a Minnesota club holding a two-game edge over the Guardians in the AL Central standings. A former first-round draftee and top prospect, Larnach has appeared in 51 of the club’s 74 games. He’d settled in as manager Rocco Baldelli’s primary left fielder over the past few weeks and is amidst a decent season.
Through 180 plate appearances, Larnach owns a .231/.306/.406 line that checks in right around league average by measure of wRC+. While the left-handed hitter has continued to strike out at an alarming rate (31.7%), he’s walked at a quality 10% clip and collected 18 extra-base hits. Defensive metrics have judged his corner outfield work favorably as well, making for a nice start to the Oregon State product’s second season in the big leagues.
With Larnach out of action for the past few days, Baldelli has turned to utilityman Nick Gordon in left field. The 26-year-old has just a .250/.287/.365 line with a pair of homers through 56 games, making him an imperfect fit for regular action at a bat-first position. Alex Kirilloff is capable of working in the corner outfield, but he’s kicked to first base while Luis Arraez has moved to second after the club lost Jorge Polanco to the IL last week.
Gamel and Newman might fit on this team as short term fixes.
Jake Cave is over in St Paul waiting for a phone call !!
Don’t speak that name, please.
Decent?!?
Twins insider Sarcasm….
Only 6 weeks to fully recover from core surgery is amazing. I wonder if the words they chose to describe the surgery are just a fancy way to say he’s having hernia surgery; the one core muscle procedure I know of that doesn’t take too long to recover from. If it is to repair torn/strained abdominal muscles then he’d be out for a lot longer than 6 weeks for sure.
When he comes back, the Twins (and Larnach himself) have to figure out a way for him to cut down on his strikeout rates. In 2021, he had 260 official ABs and struck out in 40% of his plate appearances! This season, he has 160 ABs and has struck out just under 36% of his ABs. Regardless of what he does when he makes contact, those K rates are not acceptable for a starting MLB player unless he can provide Rob Deer type of production/power/defense to offset them. If he can’t improve his contact rates, he’ll lose his starting role on this team. That’s the real core issue they need to repair!
Garlic and Celestino should be able to fill in as well as Gordon. No need to run out and find someone else benchwarmer.