Cleveland's Josh Naylor suffers gruesome leg injury in Target Field collision

The collision looked violent, the injury gruesome. But it's Josh Naylor's unbearable pain that will linger with both teams at Target Field on Sunday.

"That's about as challenging and tough and really emotional of a spot that you're going to see on a baseball field," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of the play that sent the Cleveland right fielder to the hospital. "Once you see that, you're not going to unsee it. It brings out feelings, too, and it's hard sometimes to refocus. We'll be thinking about him."

Jorge Polanco sent a check-swing blooper Naylor's way. He scrambled and gloved it on the fly in shallow right field. Just as he reached the ball, however, he collided with second baseman Ernie Clement, knocking Naylor into the air and the ball out of his glove.

Naylor spun in the air and landed hard, with his full weight falling on his right leg, which was awkwardly turned underneath him.

The leg clearly broken, Naylor immediately began rolling around the outfield in obvious pain as trainers rushed to help.

"It's hard. You saw the way he reacted — it's hard to not react to that," Cleveland manager Terry Francona said. "Everybody is certainly thinking about him."

Said Twins starter J.A. Happ: "I don't want to watch a replay of that. You don't feel good watching that. It didn't look or sound very good. We're hoping for the best for him."

Paramedics were summoned, and an inflatable cast was administered to Naylor's right leg before he was taken off on a cart, then taken by ambulance to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he remained several hours after the game. Francona said Naylor suffered a fracture but wasn't specific.

Sam Hentges will always remember how great it was to stand on the Target Field mound again. He might choose to forget what happened next.

"It was very cool," the Mounds View High School product said of his first hometown start as a big-leaguer. "It didn't go the way that we wanted it to, but it was a cool moment."

Hentges, whose most recent performance at Target Field was a shutout in the Class 3A state championship game in 2014, found the Twins' lineup more formidable than Eden Prairie's. The Cleveland rookie gave up at least one run in each of the first four innings, six in all over 3⅓, and walked a batter in each, too.

"The hardest thing is, he's having a tough time repeating. Like, he'll throw a really good pitch, and then he'll throw one that doesn't go where he wants it to go," Francona said. "As we've seen in this league, that can lead to some trouble."

Andrelton Simmons hit a two-run homer in the second inning off Hentges, and Josh Donaldson led off the third with an upper-deck blast.

"They've got some good, veteran hitters and I just never really got into a rhythm. The breaking balls weren't inducing swings the way they usually do, and the fastball command wasn't great," said Hentges, who had dozens of friends and family members in the announced crowd of 20,215. "So just not a great day at the ballpark."

• Byron Buxton was the only Twins player elected as an All-Star finalist in the first phase of fan balloting, MLB announced. The All-Star starters will be announced after Phase 2 ends Thursday. Buxton, who has played only three games since May 5, will not be healthy enough to play if elected to start but would likely attend the festivities in Denver.

• Happ's inspections by umpire Chris Guccione were more complicated than most, because of blisters on Happ's left hand. Happ was cleared to carry a wet rag in his pocket to help moisten his fingers, since he wasn't able to lick them due to the blisters, and Guccione conferred with Baldelli and Happ over it between innings.