Byron Buxton having left hand checked; Twins hire head of research

A couple of notes following the Twins victory over the White Sox

The Twins did not make an announcement as to why Zack Granite batted for Byron Buxton in the eighth inning. Most times, we'll hear if a player left because of an injury. But there was nothing this time.

But after the game, Twins manager Paul Molitor said that Buxton is having his left hand checked out.

"He had a little bit of a funny swing tonight when his hand slipped off," Molitor said. "I'm hoping it's nothing. But, given the score, I wanted to get him out of there before anything further would happen. We'll check him out in the morning."

Molitor later said Buxton said he felt something as the hand slipped off that bat.

"The guys are hoping, they are optimistic, that we don't find anything," Molitor said. "But he's probably going to get checked out in the morning."

No point in speculating on what he has, if he has anything, armchair physicians don't make a lot of money. We'll see how he is in the morning.

The build-up of the Twins baseball department has taken another step forward with the hiring of Daniel Adler as the new director of baseball operations.

Adler most recently was the director of football research for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He also was a football operations intern with the New England Patriots. He worked with the Cleveland Browns and the MLB Labor relations department.

He's a native of Cleveland (!) who attended Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude in economics and was president of the Harvard Sports Analytics Collective.

Adler is going to oversee the Twins research development department, an area that the club has already made a few hires in over the last several months. The club recently parted ways with director of baseball research Jack Goin as it looked to reshape the department.