After the Twins beat the Royals without Byron Buxton in the lineup Wednesday night, they’re going to try and do the same again Thursday afternoon. According to the Twins, Buxton is away from the team for personal reasons and it’s not related to his health.
The starting lineup:
- Matt Wallner, RF
- Willi Castro, 2B
- Carlos Correa, SS
- Trevor Larnach, LF
- Ty France, 1B
- Ryan Jeffers, C
- Eddy Julien, DH
- Jose Miranda, 3B
- Harrison Bader, CF
Before learning of Buxton’s personal reason for being away, we speculated about what might be going on. Here’s what we wrote.
Is he possibly sore after crashing into the outfield wall on Monday? He did hit the wall hard when attempting to track down Jonathan India’s double to start Monday’s game between the Twins and Royals. But he stayed in the game and played again Tuesday — and the Twins have said nothing about Buxton’s health to indicate something might be wrong.
Is Buxton just out of the lineup because he’s struggling? He’s 7-for-41 with 16 strikeouts this season.
And his whiff rate — 46.1% — is in the bottom one percentile this season, meaning he’s swinging and missing as much as pretty much any player in the majors. He’s whiffing on 59.1% of the time on breaking balls, 55.6% against offspeed pitches, and 37.8% of the time on fastballs, according to Baseball Savant.
Buxton is also 0-for-7 with two strikeouts in his career against Royals starter Michael Wacha. But batter versus pitcher stats clearly aren’t factoring much into the lineup because Christian Vazquez isn’t starting and he’s 7-for-13 lifetime against Wacha.
Maybe we’ll learn more, but for now this just appears to be Buxton sitting on getaway day before the Twins host the Tigers at Target Field Friday-Sunday.
