Mahle out four weeks with right arm strain

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins have barely had a chance to see a fully healthy and effective Tyler Mahle since they parted ways with a significant prospect haul at last season’s Trade Deadline to bring the right-hander into the rotation -- and it looks like they’ll need to wait a while longer still to see that.

Mahle will be shut down for four weeks with a posterior impingement and a flexor pronator strain in his right arm, manager Rocco Baldelli announced on Sunday, which became apparent following a review of MRI and X-ray imaging. Minnesota will re-evaluate Mahle after that time.

• Box score: Twins 8, Royals 4

While the Twins have not offered more detail as to what this could mean for their rotation, the logical guess would be that Louie Varland, ranked as the organization’s No. 10 prospect by MLB Pipeline, could step into a regular starting role.

Mahle had a 3.16 ERA in five starts, with 28 strikeouts and five walks in 25 2/3 innings. He exited his last start on Thursday against the Royals after only four innings due once again to an onset of noticeably diminished velocity, though he and the Twins waved away any concern following that game as just soreness and inflammation that they figured would resolve within a few days.

Twins head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta characterized the injury as an impingement on Friday, saying the club planned to give Mahle anti-inflammatories and evaluate him over the following few days to gauge his readiness for his next start.

But Minnesota has already been down this road before with Mahle -- twice -- since he arrived last Aug. 2. He has now made nine total starts for the Twins, and he has exited three of those early with diminished velocity that he hand-waved away as soreness following each of those outings.

Last season, he exited an Aug. 17 start against Kansas City early and ended up on the IL for two weeks. He returned to the mound on Sept. 3 against the White Sox and left that start, too, with the same velocity issues.

The Twins described the issue as right shoulder inflammation each of those times, and Mahle said he didn’t do anything special to address it during the offseason other than rest, even saying that he was working at Driveline, a pitching development business, early in the offseason to workshop a new slider.

This time, it’s the elbow. Paparesta previously indicated that the Twins don’t feel this to be related to Mahle’s troubles of last season, but this issue has presented itself in an all-too-familiar way, already testing the Twins’ rotation depth in concert with the right triceps strain to Kenta Maeda that sent the veteran to the IL on Saturday.