MINNEAPOLIS -- Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers was removed from Thursday's 11-8 loss to the White Sox in the fourth inning with what the team called a head contusion.
Jeffers took two foul tips to the mask in the top of the third inning. On one, a Taj Bradley pitch came up and in on White Sox first baseman Lenyn Sosa. The ball hit the knob of Sosa’s bat and caromed off Jeffers’ head, which was confirmed upon replay review after Chicago challenged, thinking Sosa had been hit by the pitch.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Jeffers will travel with the team to Kansas City and be reevaluated before Friday’s game with the Royals.
"Basically, we're just going to monitor him tomorrow when we get to the ballpark, run him through some sort of workout. I don't know if it's a baseball workout or not,” Baldelli said. “But we’ll monitor him and evaluate him and see how he is. So overall, relatively positive, but we'll see how he is [Friday].”
Jeffers stayed in the game initially, batting in the bottom of the third and catching the top of the fourth, but he was replaced by pinch-hitter Mickey Gasper in the bottom of the fourth.
"I chatted with him briefly [on the bench]. He seemed fairly normal. It didn't seem like some sort of urgent situation in any way,” Baldelli said. “But just out of caution, we wanted to get him looked at. So overall, the evaluation was OK, but it’s something that you're always going to need to monitor the next day.”
The 28-year-old Jeffers is slashing .262/.353/.394 on the season, his sixth with the Twins. He’s posted career highs in hits, walks and doubles this year and had been splitting the catching duties with veteran Christian Vázquez. However, Vázquez has been out since early August recovering from an infection in his shoulder.
The only other catcher on the Twins’ 40-man roster is 29-year-old Jhonny Pereda, whom the team claimed off waivers from the Athletics on July 22.
In 86 career Major League plate appearances, Pereda is slashing .203/.267/.228. However, he has a .948 OPS in 20 games with Triple-A St. Paul this year.