The Twins will use the next few days to assess what was causing the soreness in Tyler Mahle’s right posterior elbow that forced him out of Thursday’s game early, and how to proceed.

But in the minutes following the Twins’ 7-1 win over the Kansas City Royals in the series opener at Target Field, the starter didn’t seem to believe the soreness was anything serious.

“No one’s really concerned about it, so we just sit back for a few days, let it calm down, and it should be fine,” he said.

Mahle said in the fourth inning he started noticing a bit of soreness, and the Twins played it cautiously, removing him after he finished the frame. The righty experienced a dramatic velocity dip throughout the course of his start, his four-seam fastball ranging from 94.5 miles per hour to 88.1 mph. His average velocity was down on every pitch and down about 2 mph on the heater.

His exit came a day after Kenta Maeda had to leave his start against the Yankees early with an arm injury.

“It’s obviously not what you’re hoping to see, but it’s not something we think is a long-term issue,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’re going to have to sort it out over the next couple of days to see how he’s coming back and how he looks.”

Mahle’s short day aside — he gave up one run, which came on a Vinnie Pasquantino home run in the fourth inning — there was plenty for the Twins (15-11) to like, including a two-hit day from Max Kepler, who drove in one of the Twins’ early runs, to a Byron Buxton three-run blast to right-center off Royals (6-20) starter Zack Greinke, which broke open the game, to a Carlos Correa home run deposited into the Royals’ bullpen, a good sign for the slow-starting shortstop.

The game also included a nice, crisp return to the big leagues for Brock Stewart, the veteran who hadn’t pitched in a major league game since 2019. Stewart came on in relief of Mahle and pitched two innings, giving up one hit, striking out three and earning the win.

“That’s kind of what he looked like in St. Paul, and we got more of that here,” Baldelli said. “… Stuff looked pretty nasty.”

Stewart said that on his trip to Minneapolis after learning that the Twins had selected his contract, he had some time to sit alone with his thoughts and reflect on his path back to the major leagues. He joked that he hoped nobody was watching him on the plane, as he got emotional thinking about what he had to overcome to get back to baseball’s highest level.

Stewart’s journey took him to an independent league in 2020 and then saw him undergo Tommy John surgery in 2021 and arthroscopic surgery to address a bone spur 10 months later. His return came on a night when his wife, 13-month-old son Jett and parents were in attendance.

“There were days where I didn’t know if I wanted to keep going through the grind of a whole rehab process,” Stewart said. “But I’m sure glad I did. I always hoped and prayed I’d get back to this moment. To be here now, it’s very special.”