FORT MYERS, Fla. — Tuesday will mark six weeks since Ervin Santana’s surgery on his right middle finger, but he has yet to resume gripping a baseball, much less throwing one.

“It’s just exercise right now,” Santana, the Twins’ top starter the past three seasons, said Sunday morning. “We just take it one day at a time. The good thing is each day we see progress.”

The swelling in Santana’s knuckle continues to diminish, but it’s still not completely out of the area. He still can’t make a fist with his pitching hand, for instance, which will be a key step before he’s allowed to practice his pitch grips.

From there, he will have to begin a throwing program with light tosses as he tries to stay on a timeline originally slated for 10 to 12 weeks following Feb. 6 surgery in New York City. He spends more than an hour each day just moving his finger in various directions.

During his down time, he received heat and electronic stimulation treatments on the knuckle. The cast and stitches were removed on March 5, nearly two weeks ago.

Where does that leave Santana in regard to his original timeline, which had him targeting a late April or early May return?

“I don’t know,” he said. “They didn’t say a specific time, but for me I just want to come back when everything is 100 percent. I don’t want to rush anything.”

BROTHERLY SUPPORT

For the second consecutive spring, Nick Gordon’s big brother, Dee Gordon of the Seattle Mariners, has taken up publicly for him in terms of his positional usage.

“So somebody wanna tell me why @FlashGThe3rd ain’t getting to play SS … AT ALL?!?!” Dee Gordon posted on his Twitter account Saturday night. “I mean he don’t play 2B at all and y’all got somebody over there … something ain’t right and I need answers ASAP!”

Nick Gordon, a 22-year-old hitting .409 with two triples in 13 games this spring, remained in Twins camp as of Sunday morning. His playing time, however, has come almost exclusively at second base, where the Twins could see all-star Brian Dozier depart via free agency after this season.

“He’s a grown man,” Nick Gordon said of Dee. “I don’t talk to him about that. He’s doing his thing. It’s all right. He does what he wants. That’s his stuff. Let him do his thing.”

It was last spring, while still a member of the Miami Marlins, that Dee Gordon emphatically told the Pioneer Press, “My brother is a shortstop.” Dee Gordon, who came up as a shortstop with the Los Angeles Dodgers, was moved to second base early in his big-league career and is being converted to center field this spring with the Mariners.

Twins manager Paul Molitor said recently he would like to see Nick Gordon play around the diamond “just to keep his windows open if something were to happen,” noting current shortstop Jorge Polanco saw significant time at second in the minors.

“I wouldn’t take him off short,” Molitor said of Gordon. “He’ll still get a chance to play there, but I would try to get the other side of second base, where he gets a little more comfortable. We’ve had some good discussions about that position.”

Nick Gordon, who missed time with a sprained right wrist suffered on a headfirst slide into third on his first triple, said it was by design that he used a feet-first slide on Saturday at the Pirates.

“I’m trying to make sure I keep my hands up so I don’t mess up my wrists,” he said.

BACK FIELD UPDATE

Right-hander Lance Lynn was sharp again across four hitless innings in a minor league intrasquad game.

Pitching at 90-93 mph with his fastball, Lynn had five strikeouts and three walks in his 60-pitch outing (40 strikes). He threw first-pitch strikes to just half of his 16 batters, but some of that was because of his experimentation with early-count offspeed pitches.

Molitor watched the first three innings from behind the backstop before walking back over to manage the Grapefruit League game at Hammond Stadium.

Eddie Rosario, batting every inning and playing left field for the first time in two weeks, struck out twice in four at-bats against Lynn.

Bobby Wilson, slated to begin the year as the catcher at Triple-A Rochester, caught Lynn and drew a third-inning walk.

BRIEFLY

Right-handers Myles Jaye and Jake Reed joined Gordon among Sunday’s reassignments. Jaye posted a 5.63 earned-run average in eight spring innings. Reed, a reliever left unprotected in the Rule 5 draft, pitched to a 1.50 ERA in six spring innings with eight strikeouts and four walks. Also sent out were outfield prospect LaMonte Wade Jr., outfielder Nick Buss and catcher Jordan Pacheco.