Just a single game into the Double-A season, Walker Jenkins is already on the IL
They say when it rains it pours, but the April Showers the Minnesota Twins are experiencing is more like a thunderstorm of bad injury luck.
Already the team was without two of its top players, with Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee beginning the year on the IL after suffering injuries in Spring Training.
On Tuesday night the Twins lost ace Pablo Lopez to a hamstring injury that ended his second start of the season early. It was a tough blow at an even tougher time as Minnesota has dug itself a hole by stumbling out to a 3-8 start.
The bad vibes permeate beyond the Big League club too.
According to The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman, the Wind Surge are placing top prospect Walker Jenkins on the IL with an ankle sprain just one game into the Double-A season. He’s only played in two games this year, both coming in Spring Training and neither bringing him any closer to an MLB debut.
Twins top prospect Walker Jenkins is already on the IL with an ankle injury
In what seems like a masochistic rite of passage, Jenkins’ journey to the Twins roster might end up being longer than we all anticipated.
#MNTwins top prospect Walker Jenkins was placed on the Double-A Wichita injured list with a left ankle sprain.
Same ankle injury Jenkins was sidelined by during spring training. He played two games for Wichita.
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) April 9, 2025
This marks the second straight year that Jenkins will hit the IL at the start of the season.
He made the Opening Day roster for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels but needed to leave in the second inning after crashing into the outfield wall. This came after he missed the Spring Showcase game earlier in March, due to a quad injury he was dealing with.
Jenkins didn’t end up returning to Single-A until June, playing well enough and remaining healthy enough to get promoted to High-A Cedar Rapids by the end of July.
That’s what gave Twins fans false hope that good things were ahead. Jenkins was named the No. 3 overall prospect in baseball bahing Roki Sasaki and Roman Anthony, but yet another injury has seemingly set him back.
We’ll see how serious this ends up being and if he misses as much time as he did this time last year, but just when Twins fans didn’t think things could get worse this proves that the wrong kinds of hits will just keep on coming.
