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It’s sunny and cool with a tinge of October in the air as the Minnesota Twins prepare for the season-ending series against the Detroit Tigers. It’s Fan Appreciation Weekend, and to get that underway, the Twins will send righty Kyle Gibson (5.02 ERA, 4.86 FIP in 154.1 innings) to the mound, where he’ll be opposed by lefty Matt Boyd (5.12 ERA, 4.36 FIP in 130 innings).

More on that in a bit.

The biggest news buzzing around Target Field came about an hour before the clubhouse opened, as the Twins activated third baseman Miguel Sano from the disabled list. Sano isn’t in the lineup Friday, but could get in there to hit late or perhaps make a start or two over the weekend at DH.

Ultimately, it’s all up in the air leading up to Tuesday, though Molitor said that Sano could even be on the postseason roster but not start that game.

“I worked hard,” Sano said. “I worked hard, coming here every day early in the morning to do what I needed to do in terms of rehabbing in order to do to be at this point.”

Sano said he’s been doing his normal rehab lately, and that includes some pool work and some work with a bone stimulator.

“I’m super excited,” Sano said. “The team is going to the playoffs. We’re playing one game and we have to play 100 percent and have all the tools necessary to win the game. I’m excited.”

“There’s really no downside (in activating Sano),” manager Paul Molitor said. “There’s really nowhere for him to go to try play or rehab. He had a couple good days yesterday and today. I think he’s finally at a point where some of the apprehension about risk of playing has subsided. He hit quite a bit today. He ran a bit today.”

Molitor followed that with a cold splash of water, however.

“The reality is, it’s encouraging to some degree, but we have to keep perspective,” Molitor said. “I mean, it was what, Aug. 19 (he last played)? That’s a long time not to face major-league pitching.”

“There’s a possibility I’ll try to get him an at-bat tonight somewhere in the game. We’ll see how he responds to all the work he did today and how he feels tomorrow, and whether we’ll be able to get a chance to use him as a DH over the next couple days. But it’s just kind of wait and see.”

Sano’s on-field work, with the bat at least, was impressive though, Molitor did note.

“It’ll be fun to see him out on the field taking some swings,” Molitor said. “His batting practice looked really good today, considering he hasn’t hit a ton — over the past couple of weeks in particular. We’ll just have to measure it day-by-day through the weekend. Unfortunately, we’ve been compressed into a small time window to have to make a decision about moving forward after this weekend.”

Molitor also wouldn’t rule out a simulated game for Sano to replicate some live swings against pitching to help get him up to speed.