The Minnesota Twins still have enough time left to keep the math alive, but the reality is staring them in the face. At 68-76, they sit 4.5 games behind the Cleveland Guardians for the final American League wild card spot with 18 games left, which means they’d need to finish five wins better than Cleveland just to take the berth outright.
That is a steep climb under any circumstances. It gets a lot steeper when Byron Buxton is part of the conversation.
Buxton’s right hip impingement has already sent him to the injured list three times this season, and it will require surgery after the year. Earlier this week, The Athletic reported there is still hope he could return before the season ends. But the better question is whether that return should even be on the table.
If this were the first time Buxton had dealt with the injury, the discussion would look different. It isn’t.
The same issue has kept him out three separate times, and the fact that surgery is waiting on the other side says plenty about how persistent it has been. He has not been able to play through it, and he has been limited to 18 games since the All-Star Break.
The frustrating part for Minnesota is that Buxton was producing at an All-Star level before the injury slowed him down. He made the All-Star team, though he couldn’t play because he was already on the IL with the hip issue.
For the season, he’s hitting .254/.319/.511 with 25 home runs and 46 RBI. In August, though, his production cratered to .179/.304/.231 with one RBI.
Injuries have followed Buxton for much of his career, but the Twins know what he can be when he’s healthy. They can live with that version of him.
Right now, though, he isn’t even doing baseball activities. He has been shut down, and Minnesota is hoping rest might get him back on the field.
Even that would take a ramp-up period, and time is the one thing the Twins do not have.
Buxton has said he wants to finish his career in Minnesota, and he has two years left on the $100 million contract he signed in 2022. From his side, it makes sense to pause now, have the surgery and recover. It makes sense for the Twins, too, if their goal is to keep him in center field for the next two seasons and maybe longer.
The postseason is still hanging around as a faint possibility, but the Twins do not look like a playoff team. At some point, patience turns into denial.
Buxton likely will not be able to help this season, and if he does, it probably would only be as a designated hitter. The next couple of weeks should make that call easier for everyone involved.
In Other News...
Twins Have A Late Season Roster Decision Three Saints Are Forcing
As the minor league season winds down, the Twins are starting to sort through the kind of late-season roster questions that can shape September depth, and three St. Paul Saints stand out in that conversation. Emmanuel Rodriguez is back from injury and has flashed the kind of offensive production that can force his way onto a major league radar, while Cody Morissette has taken a clear step forward at the plate since joining the organization.
Aaron Rozek adds a different kind of value, giving Minnesota another arm to consider as pitching depth becomes more important in the stretch run. With the Saints' season nearing its finish and big-league roster decisions coming into focus, the Twins have a few performances in St. Paul that are making it harder to ignore what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Kaelen Culpepper Is Giving The Twins A Real Shortstop Decision
Kaelen Culpepper has spent just 100 plate appearances in the majors, but he has already made the Twins think seriously about what comes next at shortstop. In that small sample, he has hit .297/.350/.451 with five doubles and three home runs, while also showing the kind of bat speed and defensive comfort that can make a young middle infielder hard to take out of the lineup.
The more he plays, the more the job starts to look like his, especially with his glove holding up at shortstop over 203 innings and his offensive approach bringing real life to the position. Culpepper still has to keep building, stay healthy and prove he can carry it forward, but the Twins appear to be moving toward a future where he is the full-time answer there next season. [Read more 🡒]
Twins Did Everything They Could And Still Got This Ending
The Twins spent the second half trying to claw their way back into the race, and for a while it at least felt plausible. Their playoff odds were around 40% in August, the front office pushed chips in with trades for pitching help, and the organization kept leaning on its young talent by promoting top prospects Kaelen Culpepper and Waker Jenkins. Even as the season slipped, the message from the club was clear: they were not going to let the roster sit still and accept the slide.
Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan kept playing through injuries, Ryan Jeffers continued to emerge as one of the teams most reliable contributors, and the Twins still found a way to stay in the conversation longer than it might have seemed possible. But the second half never produced the sustained run they needed, and now the math has finally closed the door on postseason contention. For a team that kept searching for answers all the way to the end, the ending still lands hard. [Read more 🡒]