Byron Buxton just cannot catch a break. The Minnesota Twins placed their star outfielder on the 10-day injured list on Thursday because of a lingering right hip issue, and there is no timetable set for his return. His absence is expected to extend through the All-Star break at a minimum.
The Twins have been dealing with Buxton injuries for years now, and every one of them feels like a fresh gut punch. When healthy, he is one of the most electric players in baseball. The problem is that healthy Buxton has been the exception rather than the rule for most of his career, and 2026 is following the same pattern.
Manager Rocco Baldelli has been dancing around the situation for weeks. The right hip has been bothering Buxton for a while, and the Twins had tried to manage it through rest days and a modified pregame routine. That plan clearly did not work. The IL move is essentially an acknowledgment that Buxton needed to be shut down completely before things got worse.
Minnesota’s playoff hopes are still alive, but they are going to be much harder to sustain without their center fielder. Buxton was hitting .289 with 10 home runs and playing his usual elite defense in center when he was on the field. Replacing that production is going to be nearly impossible in the middle of a season.
The Twins do have some depth in the outfield. Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner, and other rotation pieces will need to step up in Buxton’s absence. Manuel Margot is likely going to see more time in center, which is not ideal defensively but is workable in the short term. The bigger issue is the offensive drop-off, which the Twins simply cannot make up internally.
General manager Derek Falvey is going to have some tough decisions to make at the trade deadline. Do the Twins push for a bat to replace Buxton’s production? Do they trust that Buxton comes back and hits like an All-Star in September? Or do they punt on the season and become sellers, moving veterans for future assets?
The AL Central race adds another wrinkle. The division is wide open, and even a mediocre Twins team has a legitimate shot to compete. But the standings can be misleading in a bad division. Falvey has to weigh whether adding at the deadline is a good use of resources for a team that might peak at 82 wins.
Buxton’s contract situation is also worth mentioning. He is under team control for several more years, but his contract has always been structured with performance incentives that reward him for staying healthy. When he cannot stay on the field, both he and the franchise lose out. It is a heartbreaking dynamic for a player who plays as hard as anyone in the sport when he is out there.
The Twins also placed a series of other players on the IL earlier this season, and the injury issues have been a recurring theme all year. Bailey Ober is set to return this weekend as the Twins host the Cleveland Guardians, which is a small piece of good news in an otherwise brutal week.
For Buxton personally, the frustration has to be off the charts. He has played through so many injuries throughout his career and always seems to come back and produce when healthy. But at some point, the mental toll of constant IL stints starts to add up. He is only 32 years old, but he has spent enough time on the shelf to feel like an older player.
The Twins will figure out what to do without him. They have to. The season does not stop just because their best player is on the shelf again. But every day Buxton is not on the field is another day Minnesota’s playoff hopes get harder to sustain.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
