Buxton starting to hit top speed: 'I wish the season started tomorrow'

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Just watch Byron Buxton run.

It remains quite the sight when Buxton hits cruising velocity and just glides around the bases. He got to do a lot of that in Saturday’s 10-7 victory over the Yankees at Lee Health Sports Complex, when he tripled twice and homered for plenty of base-circling in the continuation of an encouraging spring in which he’s continued to do everything the Twins could hope for in his buildup to the season.

Buxton has never hit multiple triples in a regular-season game. So, what better time to check that off the list than as part of a Spring Training during which his ability to run matters more than it perhaps ever has before?

“I wish the regular season started tomorrow now,” Buxton said. “You have a game like this, this is when you [go], ‘All right, I wish the season started tomorrow.’ Especially after the way I was feeling before the off-day. To come back out and have the game I did, it felt good.”

Wait, the way he was feeling before the off-day?

“I swung over a few sliders, swung over a few changeups,” Buxton said. “The lefty with Boston in my last at-bat struck me out on a high fastball, and it was like -- that was the pitch I got to two days before that.”

And that’s the difference between this spring and last. Buxton was coming off right knee procedures both years, but this year, “the way [he’s] feeling” is solely about how he’s seeing pitches at the plate and not about whether his knee will hold up. And that’s evident to his teammates in the way he carries himself.

“It's fun to see him with so much joy, so happy, performing great, playing center field,” Carlos Correa said. “It's where he belongs. … Massive difference. He's more vocal. He's more present.”

“Honestly, it feels very normal for him to be acting upbeat and kind of ready to go out there and play like we know he can,” Bailey Ober said. “Obviously last year was a little bit down battling through a lot of stuff, but right now he's upbeat and he's ready to be out there and he looks really good.”

If healthy, Buxton will certainly hit for power, as he reminded all in attendance when he crushed a fastball from left-hander Nestor Cortes over the left-center-field wall for his first homer of the spring. He also remains incredibly strong, as he showed in the second when driving a pitch to the warning track in straightaway center for his first triple and again when a high fourth-inning flare to right field ended up carrying to the wall for triple No. 2.

And now he can run again, as shown by how he coasted into third base with a slide on each of those deep drives. It should say something about where Buxton is at that he clearly wasn’t going anything close to full effort on either hit and still made it to third base without a competitive throw both times.

“Obviously that second one, I could hear, ‘Not too fast!’” Buxton said. “I can tell already I’d better not go 100 [percent]. But I’ve got good speed, you know. It was good. I got a few ricochets to make it easier. But it was a good day.”

All has gone according to plan so far. Buxton progressed into game play on schedule alongside Correa and he has continued to play center field in Grapefruit League games on schedule. Now, he’s going to proceed into back-to-back games on schedule, as he’s slated to start at designated hitter in Sunday’s home game against the Nationals.

“He was high-flying,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He was swinging the bat good. Running the bases like we know he does. … A highly productive day for him. I think he lit up today. He was moving like himself. He’s been moving like himself, but I think today, he felt like himself.”

By the way, no Twins player has ever hit a homer and multiple triples in a regular-season game. When Buxton is feeling like himself, he’s the kind of guy that will boast that he’s going to steal 20 bases again. And when told that Saturday’s performance could have landed him in the club’s record books, he offered another guarantee:

“Well, I’m looking forward to that one,” Buxton said. “I’ve done it once, I can do it again.”