The Twins are being careful with their star center fielder as he mixes designated hitter days into his routine.
Byron Buxton walked off the field at Rate Field on Monday with the same status he has had for most of his career.
He is too important to lose and too fragile to really push.
The Minnesota Twins dropped a 3-1 game to the Chicago White Sox in the series opener, and manager Derek Shelton spent the postgame answering questions about his star center fielder's body.
Buxton has been mostly used at designated hitter since returning from right hip soreness last week, and on Monday he shocked some by stretching a routine grounder into something more, taking a base most players would have settled for.
The aggression was good, but it also gave Shelton a fresh reason to think about his approach.
Shelton's Plan
When asked how the Twins will handle Buxton going forward, Shelton kept his words simple.
"I think we'll kind of monitor it," Shelton said. "I think the one thing we know with Buck is we have to monitor his body and we will continue to do that."
The rest of the answer went deeper, with Shelton explaining why the Twins built their roster the way they did over the winter.
"And as long as he is in our lineup one way or another and we have to mix and match," Shelton said, "our club has versatility to be able to protect if the fact if he's just going to DH."
That depth is doing real work right now, since Buxton is rarely in the outfield and the Twins need productive bats around him to keep the lineup whole.
A Strong Two Months at the Plate
Buxton has been one of the most productive hitters in baseball this season, slashing .263 with 16 home runs and a .901 OPS through 54 team games.
He sits sixth in the majors in slugging at .579, and his last five starts have produced a .286 average with a walk and a double on Monday.
For a 26-28 Twins club still searching for traction in the AL Central, he has carried Minnesota's lineup, hitting at the top of the order and supplying most of the thump behind it.
None of that works if he is not on the field, which is the part Shelton keeps coming back to.
Why the Caution Makes Sense
Buxton's career has been a long string of what-could-have-been stretches, with right knee trouble, hamstrings, and now the hip all costing him chunks of seasons since his peak years.
He played 126 games in 2025, his most since the 140-game campaign back in 2017, and Minnesota wants to build on that without breaking him.
Caution is the answer now, and as long as both keep working, Minnesota stays alive in the AL Central race.
The way Shelton handles his star over the next stretch of games will say a lot about how this season ends up shaking out.
