Six days after exiting a game against the Red Sox with a knee injury, star center fielder Byron Buxton is back in the lineup for the Minnesota Twins on Thursday afternoon. He is starting at DH and in the leadoff spot in the series finale against the Kansas City Royals (GameTracker).
Buxton suffered the injury, which the Twins have described as "right knee soreness," last Friday on a slide into second base against Boston. An MRI revealed no structural damage and Buxton shagged fly balls and took batting practice in the cage to test the knee in recent days. Here's the slide that led to the injury:
"It was kind of more of a tingling sensation up my leg, and just more cautious than anything," Buxton told MLB.com. "Normally, I probably wouldn't have said anything, just because I wanted to stay in and play, but it's early in the season, and it's better to miss a couple of games now than to miss two or three months later."
Prior to the injury Buxton, now 28, went 6 for 24 (.250) with three doubles and three home runs in seven games. Performance is rarely a question with Buxton. It's all health. From 2019-21, a variety of injuries limited him to 187 of 384 possible regular season games, or 49 percent. When he's on the field, he performs. He just isn't on the field often enough.
The Twins sit in last place in the AL Central at 4-8 coming into Thursday. They've scored only 40 runs in their 12 games and rank 28th in batting average (.198), 23rd in on-base percentage (.291), and 24th in slugging percentage (.338) in the early going.
