updated 5:31 p.m. ET April 1, 2006

Torii Hunter learned long ago that worrying can only bring about bad things. So whenever a ball is hit to deep center field this year, the five-time Gold Glove winner will be chasing it as he always has — at full speed.

After breaking his left ankle while trying to make a jumping catch against the wall at Fenway Park last July, Hunter missed the last two months of the season.

“If I have to break it again, I’d do it again. I’m going up on the wall every time,” the Minnesota star said this spring. “It doesn’t matter. That’s my game. If I take away my game, then I’m not Torii. I’m going to go out and play hard like I always do — no fear.”

He’s one of several big league standouts back on the diamond after spending significant time on the disabled list in 2005. Eric Gagne, Scott Rolen, Keith Foulke and Frank Thomas are some of the prominent others.

And here’s a running theme among the hurt: These days, comebacks aren’t as difficult.

“They’re always coming up with new technology and surgeries,” said Gagne, the Dodgers closer. “If they had some of the stuff we have now when guys like Sandy Koufax were around, he’s still be pitching today.”

Hunter was missed dearly in the lineup, the field and the clubhouse while the three-time AL Central champions faded to third place. As the longest-tenured position player on the Twins, Hunter, who turned 30 last July, has become the unquestioned leader.

“It was tough,” he said. “You’re sitting at home with a cast on your ankle. You just feel like you could have helped a team win when they were losing.”

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In the last guaranteed year of his contract, Hunter might not be putting on a Minnesota uniform for much longer. Thus the Twins aren’t going to take him for granted, and they don’t want him to take a cautious approach, either.

“When he’s out in center field that’s his domain, and he takes too much pride in it to play it any other way,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “I don’t look for Torii to do anything but what he’s been doing.”

That includes providing power for a club that always needs it, driving in runs and stealing some bases, too. Hunter tied a career high with 23 steals last season despite being limited to 98 games, and he vowed to return to running.

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“Ain’t nothing holding me back. No way,” Hunter said.

Absences can take their psychological toll on players, too, as they try to re-establish their roles, show upper management they’re still worth all that money and find out for themselves whether they can continue performing at pre-injury levels.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona has repeatedly said that Foulke will return as his closer, and the right-hander has done well this spring after a delayed start.

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A major part of Boston’s 2004 World Series championship team, Foulke struggled last year before season-ending arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in July.

Three months after that, he had a similar operation on his right knee. Though he’d thrown only three innings in official exhibition games through Wednesday, Foulke — who recently took three shots of a joint lubricant in each knee — has said his knees are all right.

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