Miguel Sano will not face charges following an accident early Sunday morning in the Dominican Republic in which a police officer suffered a broken leg.
The officer said it was an accident, that he and Sano were friends from school, and that Sano took him to the hospital for treatment, ESPN reported.
The Twins third baseman backed up his truck without realizing the officer's motorcycle was behind him, a police spokesman told ESPN. Sano went to traffic court Monday in his hometown of San Pedro de Macoris to clear up the situation.
According to the report, Sano was leaving a nightclub at 3 a.m. and spoke to officer Argenis Emilio Gillandeux. After the conversation, Sano backed up and hit the officer because he didn't realize the officer's motorcycle was behind the truck.
A spokesman for the Dominican national police told ESPN: "The citizen, Miguel Sano, was sent today to the traffic court to comply with the due process in these types of cases. It is a formality when someone is injured in a vehicular accident. It is important to clarify that the policeman declared that the accident was not intentional, and that Sano hit his leg when Sano was reversing his vehicle to leave the place and that the baseball player was the first to provide help and never abandoned the scene. Neither the agent nor the national police plan to charge Sano with anything."
Gillandeux suffered a fractured left leg.
Monday's accounts differed from reports on Sunday, which said Sano had been arrested and taken to a police station after running over Guillandrex's foot while leaving a checkpoint. The Dominican news website Diario Libre said Sano, after agreeing through his lawyers to return to the police station Monday morning, was released.
A report in the Spanish-language El Nuevo Diario said the officer "ordered Sano to stop at a checkpoint, but he continued [and] ran over the uniformed officer, leaving him with serious damage."
A police report published by several outlets said Sano and his wife were stopped in a vehicle without license plates shortly after leaving a nightclub in his hometown of San Pedro de Macoris. Sano reportedly was not carrying identification, and as he attempted to leave the checkpoint, he ran over the officer's foot, the document said.
Diario Libre said Sano "expressed willingness to ... pay for medical and recovery expenses" for Guillandrex before being released by police.
The Twins and Major League Baseball were made aware of the situation Sunday, a team spokesman said, but declined to comment beyond saying "we are still gathering the facts."
Sano, 25, returned to the Dominican after the Twins' season ended last week. The 2017 All-Star played only once after suffering a knee injury Sept. 4, closing a disappointing 2018 season with a .199 average, 13 home runs, 41 RBIs and 115 strikeouts in 71 games.
The incident is the second off-field controversy to involve the slugging third baseman in the past year. Last December, Sano was accused of sexual assault in 2015 by a Twin Cities photographer. Sano denied the charge, an MLB investigation uncovered insufficient evidence of guilt, and Sano was not punished by MLB.
On the field, Sano's injury-marred season was the worst of his four-year MLB career. He reported to training camp out of shape after being unable to work out during the winter because of surgery to insert a metal rod into in his left shin to treat a stress reaction that cost him the final six weeks of the 2017 season. Sano also missed a month after suffering a strained left hamstring in late April. And in June, as his batting average spiraled down toward .200 and his strikeouts skyrocketed, the Twins demoted Sano to Class A Fort Myers for a month to lose weight and correct his swing.
Sano left Minnesota vowing to devote himself to the workouts he was unable to perform a year ago.
"Big winter. Work hard," Sano said Sept. 30, when asked his plans for the winter as he packed up his locker. "Get stronger and better."
That's the team's plan, too. The Twins operate an academy and training facility for rookies and Dominican prospects in Boca Chica, about 20 miles from San Pedro de Macoris, and have hopes that Sano will take advantage of it.
"We're going to be very focused this offseason in doing whatever we can to put the best possible resources" around Sano, Twins general manager Thad Levine said last week.
