Buxton ties career high in HR, shows talent

MINNEAPOLIS -- The only other time Byron Buxton hit 16 homers in a season was in 2017, the only year of his career in which he stayed mostly healthy and played 140 games.

Buxton matched that career high with a solo blast in the fifth inning of Sunday afternoon's series finale against the Blue Jays, a 5-2 loss, reaching the mark in 85 fewer games. That's a mark of just how far he’s come at the plate since those early years of his career and just how much the Twins might have lost out on this season, when injuries again ate into most of what might have otherwise been an American League MVP Award-caliber campaign.

“He’s been basically the best player in baseball for the time [that] he’s had on the field,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I don’t think anyone can say [that] they’ve affected their team’s outcomes [more], and he does all the peripheral stuff for us, too, because guys love it when he’s out there playing and the energy he brings.”

The sight of Buxton trotting around the bases also served as another reminder of the importance of the decision that the Twins could have ahead of them with regards to their superstar center fielder during this coming offseason.

Just as Buxton’s otherworldly April wasn’t enough to keep the Twins afloat amid their pitching struggles, his blast and Jake Cave’s RBI single on Sunday weren’t enough as right-hander Griffin Jax once again struggled with the long ball. A three-run blast by Danny Jansen in the second inning and solo shot by George Springer in the fifth bumped Jax’s home run total to 23, the most allowed by a Minnesota rookie since Glen Perkins (25) and Nick Blackburn (23) in 2008.

Jax has allowed at least one home run in 10 consecutive starts, matching J.A. Happ for the Twins’ longest such streak since 2005-06 -- and it didn’t help that Jansen’s homer was preceded by a pair of bloop singles, helping Toronto build a sizable early lead.

“These are Major League hitters, and they’re up here for a reason,” Jax said. “Down in the Minors, some of the pitches that I could be making, they’d be outs or they’d be missing it. But up here, they don’t.”

And though the Twins got the tying run to the plate in the eighth inning, when Miguel Sanó struck out against Jordan Romano with a pair of runners in scoring position, and had hits in every inning but the seventh and ninth, they couldn’t break through beyond Buxton’s second homer in three days and sixth of the month. The shot gave him a .273/.341/.584 line in his past 20 games (a .925 OPS) in a continued surge following a brief slump when he came off the injured list in late August.

And it’s not just the power; consider, too, that Buxton has now drawn a walk in four consecutive games for the first time since 2017 and has recorded multiple strikeouts in only two of those past 20 games. He hasn’t just added pop to his bat -- though there’s plenty, with his 52.3 percent hard-hit rate continuing a steady upward progression since 2018 -- he also has the second-lowest strikeout rate of his career with whiff rates that have remained largely consistent even as he’s added that power.

“No one really has a concept of just what he's capable of doing,” Baldelli added. “You think he's capable of things that you don't see in the game from anyone. … He could do pretty much anything. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those on-base numbers also took a jump along with the huge spike in power and well-struck balls."

And all that leads to the big question that will perhaps dictate the tone for the next few seasons. Buxton and the Twins were unable to come to terms on a contract extension before the July 30 Trade Deadline, but the center fielder noted that he remains open and hopeful about the idea of continuing his career in Minnesota. Which path will they take?

The Twins have many holes to patch on their pitching staff in order to be competitive, and trading Buxton with a year remaining before arbitration could go a long way in addressing that. On the other hand, this September serves as yet another reminder that Buxton’s kind of talent is truly rare -- not just in the history of this organization, but in baseball.

And as Baldelli noted, there’s still no telling how much more could remain to be unlocked.