NORTH PORT, Fla. — This is the fully unleashed version of Byron Buxton that the Twins saw while he was healthy last season — and the version that they hope will anchor center field, day in and day out, for the next seven years to come.
The Twins lost Saturday’s contest against the Braves, 8-6, at CoolToday Park, but Buxton put on an offensive and defensive clinic that few players in the game can consistently match, including a leaping catch at the center-field warning track, a double and a game-tying two-run homer.
“We got a pretty good look at all the things that Buck can do,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He seems to present a lot of those things in the same game often.”
When Austin Riley crushed a fly ball to deep center off Twins non-roster starter Chi Chi González in the first inning, Buxton drifted back to the track and jumped with his glove outstretched to rob extra bases just in front of the center-field wall. On Tuesday, he’d made an even more spectacular catch against these same Braves, when he slammed into the center-field wall while leaping at Hammond Stadium to rob Matt Olson of extra bases.
Significantly, he’s emerged from both of these catches no worse for the wear, and while Buxton’s health has always been a point of concern when it comes to defensive highlights like these, Baldelli also acknowledged it’s tough to get a player to turn his instincts off when he’s out in the field — and these plays sure seem to fire up both Buxton and his teammates.
“You can’t tell a guy not to run; you can’t tell a guy not to make plays,” Baldelli said. “He’s going to do what comes naturally to him when he’s out there on the field. I’ll always encourage him — you say, ‘Play smart,’ but what does that really mean, ultimately? You want him to play baseball. You want him to play the game like he knows how to play it.”
Buxton’s two-run blast to left off Brandyn Sittinger in the fifth inning upped his spring line to .357/.438/.714 (an 1.152 OPS), the results of a 5-for-14 start to Grapefruit League action with three extra-base hits. As he looks to build on and sustain his .306/.358/.647 performance from a true breakout 2021, he’s playing freer than ever, having acknowledged upon his arrival in Fort Myers that things now do feel a bit different with a seven-year, $100 million extension to take his mind off worrying about the future.
“Yeah, it is,” Buxton said at the start of camp. “It’s definitely not stressful. I know I’m coming here for seven years. I know I’m going to be in Minnesota for seven years.”
“He does things in bunches on both sides of the ball, and then we have a lot to talk about after the game,” Baldelli said. “That’s what being a great player is, and today was another one of those days and he did a lot of it — well, he did all of it — in five innings.”