The Twins are finally one step away from assembling their full-strength lineup for the first time since July.

Mitch Garver made his long-awaited return from the injured list on Friday, leaving Luis Arraez as the only Twins starter sidelined with injury. Garver, the defending Silver Slugger Award winner at his position, missed nearly a month with a right intercostal strain that sent him to the IL on Aug. 20.

Willians Astudillo was optioned to the taxi squad in a corresponding move, leaving the club with three catchers: Garver, Alex Avila and No. 6 Twins prospect Ryan Jeffers.

"It’s tough not being there, and I think it’s even tougher being there and not being able to play," Garver said. "I try to be as big of a support player as I can when I’m not in the lineup, but it was tough. It feels good to get back. I feel like I can contribute to this team. Maybe we can shock 'em up a little bit and get the boys going here in the last week."

The Twins can only hope that the version of Garver they're getting back can pack a bigger punch than he did at the start of the season, when he hit .154/.262/.212 with one extra-base hit -- a homer -- in eight games.

Garver had been watching his film every day through that slump, trying to diagnose what was going wrong and how he could fix it. Was it his hands? The shoulders? Was it the swing path? Was it simply the wrong approach and preparation at the plate?

It was a combination of all of the above, Garver said.

For one, his shoulders were tilted at an upward angle during his swing, leading to undesired biomechanical influences in his path through the plate. That created a chain of effects that Garver hoped to address in his time at the alternate training site in St. Paul, Minn., starting when he first started swinging, catching and throwing there at the beginning of September.

"When I really started to get back into game play in St. Paul, we had a few things in mind that we wanted to attack," Garver said. "Some of those things have come to fruition, and I feel better about them, honestly. Stepping into the box now in the 15-20 at-bats that I got in St. Paul, I felt way more comfortable than I did in the first 50 of the regular season."

Garver said all the time he had away from the team was both good and bad. It was good for him to get a mental break from the struggles at the plate, but also less than ideal in the sense of playing himself out of the slump. Perhaps this time away will benefit him in the same way that it did for Josh Donaldson and Byron Buxton, who have excelled since coming off the IL.

"I can’t worry about the stats," Garver said. "Can’t worry about the home runs, RBIs, batting average. It’s not important at this point. Most important point is getting into the playoffs and being healthy for that push."

Odorizzi's blister sends him to IL
Jake Odorizzi's frustrating 2020 season continued with a third trip to the IL on Friday, this time for the blister that split on his pitching hand that led to an early exit from his Wednesday start against the White Sox. Sean Poppen was recalled from the taxi squad in a corresponding move.

"The best way to categorize it is, '2020,'" Odorizzi said. "It feels like, for me, I’m in a child’s game where you’ve got a little spinner. Let’s spin this thing and see where we land next. Line drive to the chest? Blister? Whatnot?"

First, it was the intercostal strain in Summer Camp. Three starts into his abbreviated 2020 season, the chest contusion after being struck by a comebacker in Kansas City came next. At least this third IL move is more of a formality than anything. Odorizzi will miss only one start -- which was likely to be the case anyway -- and the move gives the Twins a fresh arm as they posture for home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Odorizzi is eligible to be activated for the final game of the regular season, though a start that day would likely rule him out for the three-game Wild Card Series. A possible factor that could come into play is that Odorizzi was the Twins' most effective starter in the playoffs against the Yankees last season, and New York is a possible first-round opponent this year.

"If [the regular-season finale is] a meaningful game where we need to win it, that’s my day to be activated, so I’m eligible for that," Odorizzi said. "And if not, if we’re trying to slot things for the playoffs, that’s their determination. But physically, arm-wise, stuff-wise, I feel good."