DETROIT -- Twins offensive catalyst and home run leader Byron Buxton started in center field and hit leadoff on Tuesday night at Comerica Park, four days after he sustained a right shoulder contusion against the Royals.
“Well, he’s better,” Minnesota manager Derek Shelton said Tuesday afternoon. “He’s good enough to play center field. So, I think we’ll have to see, and still monitor where he’s at.
“The fact that he feels good enough to get out there is very encouraging for us.”
Buxton began the night with a Statcast-projected 428-foot leadoff homer that traveled 111.9 mph into left-center. He then struck out in his final four at-bats during the Twins' 10-4 loss to Detroit.
“It felt good,” Buxton said of the homer. “Move onto the next. I don’t care about homers. I try to hit the ball through the wall, not over it. It just happened to go over it."
Rejoining the Twins' fold represented a positive step forward for Buxton. The Twins' center fielder had been out of action since he'd crashed head-on into the padded outfield wall while tracking a drive hit by Kansas City’s Carter Jensen at Target Field. Buxton briefly dropped to the warning track but held onto the ball. He left the game shortly thereafter.
Buxton has also been playing with discomfort in his throwing shoulder for a few weeks and was the designated hitter during the last week of May before returning June 2 to center -- a spot at which he won an American League Gold Glove Award in 2017.
The 12-year MLB veteran won an AL Silver Slugger Award in 2025 -- when he posted career highs of 35 homers, seven triples, 83 RBIs and 97 runs -- and also made his second All-Star team. He was successful on all 24 stolen-base attempts and finished 11th in American League MVP voting.
Buxton, 32, leads the Twins with 18 homers, 58 hits, 41 runs and a .549 slugging percentage this season. He’s also batting .257 with an .868 on-base percentage, 28 RBIs, 10 doubles and five steals in five attempts.
Only Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber (23), Houston's Yordan Alvarez (22) and the White Sox Munetaka Murakami (20) have more home runs, but Buxton said he's more focused on team results.
“I don’t care about that,” he said. “... It’s the little things for me. At the end of the day, getting wins is the biggest thing.”