KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Luis Arraez has ditched the crutches, which is undoubtedly a good sign. So was the MRI he had taken this morning, which found no structural damage in his right ankle.
Still, the rookie infielder was limping badly in the Twins' clubhouse this morning, hobbling to his locker after another session of treatment on his sprained ankle. The injury, suffered when Arraez collided with Willians Astudillo while trying to catch a popup, has been diagnosed as a Grade 1 sprain, which is the least severe.
The Twins have five days before they must make the difficult call of whether to include Arraez on their roster for the AL Division Series. The roster must be submitted by 10 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, the morning of Game 1, so the hope is that Arraez will be running without pain by then.
For now, the focus is on one final regular season game, at 2:15 p.m. A victory would be the Twins' seventh in a row and would complete a sweep of the six-game road trip. It would also be the Twins' 102nd, tying the 1965 Twins — a team that went to the World Series, though there were no AL playoffs back then — for the most wins in franchise history.
They also trail the Yankees for most home runs ever in a single season, 305-304. New York will be facing ex-Twin, ex-Yankee Lance Lynn in Texas at the same time, so it could be an exciting finish. But the Twins aren't playing four of their top five home run hitters — Nelson Cruz, Max Kepler, Mitch Garver and Eddie Rosario — in today's game, so it'll be up to Miguel Sano, Jonathan Schoop, Jorge Polanco and C.J. Cron to hit a few out.
Here are the lineups for the Twins' regular-season finale:
TWINS
Wade Jr. LF
Polanco SS
Sano DH
Cron 1B
Cave CF
Schoop 2B
Castro C
Torreyes 3B
Miller RF
Perez LHP
ROYALS
Merrifield 2B
Soler DH
Dozier 3B
Gordon LF
McBroom RF
Cuthbert 1B
Mejia CF
Arteaga SS
Dini C
Lopez RHP
