Buxton, Correa, Kepler all leave Twins' walk-off win over Cleveland
The game? It was good. Royce Lewis hit a game-tying homer in the eighth inning and Willi Castro's sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the ninth inning gave the Twins a 7-6 walk-off win over the Cleveland Guardians Thursday night.
Overshadowing the victory, however, was Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Max Kepler all leaving the game early for health reasons.
Buxton was hit in the ribs by a 96 mph fastball in the fourth inning. He left the game and was replaced by Donovan Solano. Buxton said afterward that he felt "alright," but the Twins are going to have him examined more thoroughly on Friday.
The Correa situation is more worrisome because he left the game after aggravating the plantar fasciitis in his left foot. It happened while he was warming up before the top of the seventh.
"Throughout the entire inning, all the groundballs, every step I was taking, it was really painful," Correa told reporters afterward. "I was trying to stay, stay, stay, but it kept getting worse and worse and worse. The last thing I want is to miss a lot of time because I'm not being smart about it."
Correa will be evaluated again by medical staff on Friday.
Kepler left the game with a migraine and his status for Friday night's game against Cleveland is unclear.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.