Florimon may not be ready for regular season

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Shortstop Pedro Florimon, who had his appendix removed on Feb. 17, still hasn't been cleared to perform baseball activities, but he could start ramping up it up this week.

The original diagnosis called for Florimon to be held out of baseball activities for two weeks, and it'll be exactly two weeks on Monday. Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony said everything remains roughly on schedule for Florimon, but there's still a chance he might not be ready for the start of the regular season.

"He's getting to the point where hopefully sometime this week he'll start, because we're almost hitting the two-week mark where he can do some baseball activities," Antony said. "But nothing has changed with him. It's going to be close if he's ready to start the season or not. He needs to be in game shape, get some at-bats and be ready to go."

Florimon, 27, will be the club's starting shortstop once he's healthy, but if he's not ready for the start of the season, the Twins could turn to Eduardo Escobar or non-roster invitee Jason Bartlett. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire remains hopeful Florimon will get enough at-bats in Spring Training to be ready, but he said it's still too early to tell.

"He's just doing his thing," Gardenhire said. "The trainers really haven't said a word. There's still no timetable until he starts to move around. But he has some time. It's just a process. Once he starts to go out on a baseball field and does some stuff, then I'll know."