Carlos Correa (no fracture) day to day: 'Best news ever'

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins were prepared for the worst -- but the news regarding Carlos Correa's condition was arguably the best they could have hoped for.

Correa's right middle finger is not fractured, as had previously been feared, CT scans of the area revealed Friday. There's only some soreness and inflammation in the finger, which they will track over the coming days. Though things are still subject to change, the Twins aren't presently expecting an IL move for Correa, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said.

Correa was in great spirits as he addressed the media on Friday and didn't even require any protection around the affected finger. He hopes to return to the Twins' starting lineup as soon as this weekend.

"I went to sleep last night, and then I show up and I hear the best news ever," Correa said. "Looks like it’s day to day. I get to play baseball soon, so I’m very happy. It’s a great day, man, really it is. Got some bad news last night, and today I got the best news ever. It’s crazy to think about it."

"I tried to be in the lineup today, but they wouldn’t let me," he added.

Correa was removed from the seventh inning of Thursday's 5-3 loss to the Orioles after being hit by pitches in consecutive plate appearances. The Twins announced after the game that preliminary X-ray imaging conducted in Baltimore showed the potential for a non-displaced fracture of the right middle finger, but they'd need a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis.

"The reality is an X-ray is not as detailed, and it’s really hard with some of these small bones in the hand," Falvey said. "It might pick up some things that might look like a fracture but aren’t. So, that was what was relayed to us from the doctors today, that the CT scan was a much better look."

That made for a huge collective sigh of relief and round of bear hugs in the Twins' clubhouse following the receipt of the CT results, acting manager Jayce Tingler said. Though Correa had a .504 OPS through his first 16 games in Minnesota, his bat was clearly heating up of late, as he was 14-for-34 (.412) with a homer and three doubles in his eight most recent games.

While Correa undergoes treatment, the Twins called up Royce Lewis, the organization's No. 1 prospect, to man shortstop and make his MLB debut in Friday's series opener against the A's. That move had been made, though, under the assumption that Correa could have been bound for the injured list, as the Twins believed could be the case until a matter of hours before Friday's first pitch, so it's unclear how long this opening will last for Lewis.

The Twins will cross that bridge when they get there -- and it's looking like they'll get there much more quickly than first expected.

"I would say that our view of this is obviously that he's coming up with Carlos' situation and uncertainty around that," Falvey said. "We felt that was the best move we could make here in the short-term. And then we're going to go from there. We'll just play that out as we go."