Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said today that the goal is to have catcher Joe Mauer ready for Opening Day, but the skipper hinted that Mauer might not play exhibition games until the middle of spring training.

Mauer had surgery to remove a kidney obstruction on Dec. 22 and hasn’t been cleared to do serious lifting or conditioning exercises.

“Obviously we’re going to take it easy with him,” Gardenhire said after the team’s annual media luncheon in Minneapolis. “The goal is Opening Day.”

“Catchers get a lot of work in spring training,” Gardenhire added. “We’re going to have to protect him early. All the bullpen sessions and all those things. We’ll just take it easy on him and see how he feels, and hopefully by mid spring training we’ll get him in there playing and go from there.”

Radke, Brophy honored

The Twins announced today that former pitcher Brad Radke and former farm and scouting director George Brophy have been elected to the team’s Hall of Fame.

Radke was elected in a vote by a 55-member committee, consisting of local media members, club officials, fans and other members of the team’s Hall of Fame. Brophy was elected by a 15-member veteran’s committee.

Both will be inducted on July 11, before the Twins play the White Sox at the Metrodome.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.