The Twins are placing Byron Buxton on the injured list, and the timing could not be worse. Buxton aggravated a right hip strain during Sunday's win over the Yankees, got pulled from the game, and now he's headed to the 10-day IL retroactive to Monday. Alan Roden gets the call-up in the corresponding move.
The news broke Tuesday afternoon: Buxton is officially headed to the injured list.
The brutal part is the timing. Buxton was voted a starting outfielder for the American League All-Star team, his third career All-Star nod, and this injury wipes that out entirely. He also misses the Twins' final six games before the break, a stretch against the Guardians and Angels that Minnesota badly needs given how tight the AL Central and Wild Card races are right now.
Buxton has been arguably the best version of himself all year: a .271 average with 25 home runs, 45 RBI and 57 runs scored across 75 games. That's an MVP-caliber pace for a guy whose career has been repeatedly interrupted by injuries, so any hip issue is going to make Twins fans nervous by reflex, even on a 10-day designation.
There's also a trade-deadline layer here. Buxton has a no-trade clause and has said flatly he's not going anywhere, and Twins GM Jeremy Zoll has publicly shut down any suggestion the team is shopping him. Still, reporting had chipped his "stays put" odds down before this injury, and now an IL stint adds a wrinkle nobody was asking for, whether or not it actually moves the needle on his market.
Minnesota, at 36-40 heading into the break, has quietly won 4 straight and sits within shouting distance of a playoff spot, which is exactly why losing its best player for any stretch stings more than it would on a going-nowhere roster. The corresponding move brings up Roden to cover the outfield, but nobody replaces what Buxton does when he's right.
For now it's a 10-day IL stint and not a season-altering diagnosis, but with Buxton's medical history, the Twins and their fans will be watching every update closely as the deadline approaches.