Byron Buxton suffers back contusion in Twins' win over Royals
Byron Buxton left Tuesday night's game between the Twins and Royals with an injured back after crashing into the center-field wall.
The play happened in the bottom of the eighth inning when Adalberto Mondesi ripped a ball over Buxton's head and off the wall for an inside-the-park home run. Buxton's attempt to make a leaping catch was unsuccessful, and he slammed his back into the wall.
“Once I put my mind to it, I wanted to go get it,” Buxton said after the game, via the Star Tribune. “The ball was moving pretty good but I had already dedicated my mind to go get it so I did what I could.”
The Twins say Buxton suffered a back contusion and his status for Wednesday's matinee against the Royals is unknown. The good news is that his injury doesn't sound serious.
Buxton added 21 pounds of muscle during the offseason, saying during TwinsFest that part of his aim by bulking up was to better absorb contact in collisions like he had Tuesday night.
“Yeah, I can definitely say it helped,” Buxton said Tuesday night, via the Twins. “The past few years, that definitely hurt a little bit worse, especially running full speed.”
The Twins won the game 5-4 in 10 innings.
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.