Byron Buxton was itching to return to top of the lineup for young and energetic Twins

NEW YORK — Byron Buxton’s role on the Twins has been limited to serving as maître d’ and team psychologist for the past two weeks, so he was excited to be back atop the lineup Monday night against the New York Yankees.

“Energetically, it’s itchy to get back,” Buxton said shortly after being activated from the injured list. “I’ve been on the bench, seeing them take the extra base, stealing bases. It’s fun. We’re a young group, now even younger, just going out and playing baseball. That’s a fun thing to do.”

While waiting for the inflammation in his rib cage to heal, he has been making sure his teammates are having fun, too. He accompanied the team to Cleveland and Detroit after the trade-deadline teardown, unusual for a player on the IL, mostly to make sure the remaining players understood that their goals had not changed.

In fact, after the second game in Cleveland, he helped veteran catcher Christian Vázquez organize a team dinner at Morton’s steakhouse. Over steaks and shrimp cocktail, “we kind of talked it out. Relaxed a little bit,” Buxton said. “We wanted [the new arrivals] to know it’s good to be here — be happy about yourself for being here. It’s hard to get up here. Don’t take what happened that Thursday and carry it over for weeks. Get together, have a good dinner and go out the next day.”

Ryan Fitzgerald, for one, thought the dinner accomplished that and more. And it didn’t hurt that Buxton and Vázquez picked up the check.

“We got to know each other a little bit, shared some stories around the table. It was cool to hear from guys like Erasmo [Ramirez] and José Ureña, pushing 10 years of service time,” said Fitzgerald, a 31-year-old MLB rookie infielder. “It’s like a bombshell goes off and I’m walking into this, the new guy here — let me know what I can do to help. Buck, Vaskie, all of them were like: ‘Dude, let’s go. We’re excited. Let’s just play hard and see where it goes.’ It was encouraging to see that.”

And it’s encouraging for the Twins to have Buxton back. He got the offense going Monday night with a sixth-inning home run to get the Twins on the board, although he struck out three times.

For the second time this season, a Twins infielder has been chosen as the American League’s player of the week — and he might have taken the award away from a former teammate.

Luke Keaschall, the rookie second baseman, earned the honor after a week in which he batted .455, drove in 10 runs and hit two home runs, including the walk-off game-winner Sunday against Kansas City. And while MLB doesn’t name runners-up or other contenders for the weekly award, it seems likely that Carlos Correa received serious consideration after going 12-for-25 (.480) with a homer and five RBI for the Houston Astros.

“You try and be confident going into it and try to make the most of it,” said Keaschall, who joined former Twins first baseman Ty France as an AL honoree this season. “But at the same time, I didn’t expect to play as well as this. You always expect you have to go and compete. That’s all I’m trying to do.”

A brief survey of most of the Twins’ newcomers Monday found none who had any idea about their team’s history at Yankee Stadium.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Keaschall said before the 6-2 loss. “They haven’t informed us.”

Twins reliever Michael Tonkin spent four months with the Yankees last summer and said the Twins’ tormenters aren’t particularly aware of the lopsidedness of the rivalry, either.

“Honestly, no. It might have come up in conversation once, but it’s not something that anyone is particularly aware of,” Tonkin said. “You know, players change so often, it’s not like anyone was here for all of it. There’s no ‘we did this’ about it. It’s a lot of guys that were here before, too.”

— Right fielder Matt Wallner was reinstated from the paternity list Tuesday. His wife, Sydnie, gave birth to daughter Elliotte Bryn on Saturday.

Catcher Jhonny Pereda was sent back to St. Paul. He didn’t play for the Twins in his three games in uniform.

— Outfielder Alan Roden, who had started seven of nine games since joining the Twins, was out of the lineup Monday, his left hand wrapped in protective tape. Roden jammed his left hand into the outfield wall while catching a Mike Yastrzemski foul ball during Sunday’s seventh inning. “We’re just playing it day-to-day right now,” Baldelli said. “We want to check him out.”