Twins’ Royce Lewis moving in ‘right direction’ with quad strain, but timeline to return remains unclear

Twins third baseman Royce Lewis, who has been sidelined since an Opening Day quadriceps injury, started taking swings Friday and is expected to begin running for the first time at the end of next week.

Twins head trainer Nick Paparesta declined to speculate on a timeline for Lewis’ return until he starts running, but his recovery is moving as the training staff expected.

“He’s been doing really well,” Paparesta said Saturday. “He’s still got some boxes to check for us, but it’s heading in the right direction for him.”

When Lewis injured his quad running from first to third on a double in the Twins’ 4-1 Opening Day victory at Kansas City, the Twins announced he would be evaluated in a month and expected to miss at least the first two months of the season, with fears the injury could keep him out through the first half of the year.

Lewis has expressed optimism with the way he feels, but he was diagnosed with a “severe quad strain” and is still at the very beginning of the planned running progression.

“You want a guy that has a desire and has a sense of urgency beneath him to go out there and play,” Paparesta said, “but I think sometimes people forget that we’re only three weeks into the season. He’s only been hurt for three weeks. I know ‘only’ seems like it’s a long time, but we are three weeks into the season, and we need to be conscientious about the rest of the year ahead of us.”

Paparesta provided updates on several more injured Twins players:

• Twins reliever Daniel Duarte, who made the Opening Day bullpen after entering camp as a nonroster invitee, will miss the rest of the season. The 27-year-old righthander is scheduled to undergo season-ending elbow surgery on May 8 with Dr. Keith Meister in Texas, though it hasn’t been determined whether it will be Tommy John ligament replacement surgery or a similar alternative.

“He had an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction done 10 years ago,” Paparesta said. “He is going to need another procedure done on his elbow.”

Duarte, who has appeared in parts of three big-league seasons, permitted two hits and one run in four innings. He will remain at home in Arizona after the surgery.

• Carlos Correa (right intercostal strain) is scheduled to begin baseball activities next week. Paparesta didn’t have a timeline for the shortstop to ramp up toward games, but he said “his symptoms are improving dramatically from where we were.”

“It can get kind of tricky with that area,” Correa said. “If it gets a lot worse, you can end up missing months, and that’s definitely not what I want to do. We’re taking it day by day, and the progress has been good.”

• Reliever Justin Topa (left patellar tendinitis) threw a game-simulated bullpen session Saturday and is scheduled to face hitters in a live batting practice session Tuesday. If he recovers as expected, he could begin a rehab assignment shortly afterward.

• Righthander Josh Winder, who is on the 60-day injured list after he entered spring training with a shoulder injury, threw two live batting practice sessions in Florida in the past week. He is expected to pitch in an extended spring training game before beginning a rehab assignment.

• Reliever Zack Weiss, an offseason waiver claim, had a setback at the end of spring training with his shoulder and hasn’t progressed to pitching on a mound.

• Jair Camargo was hitless in four at-bats with two strikeouts in his first major league start.

• Max Kepler, in perhaps his last test before returning to the Twins, went 3-for-5 with a walk on his rehab assignment with the Saints, who beat host Indianapolis 12-4 as Caleb Boushley gave up an unearned run in six innings, striking out eight.