PHILADELPHIA – Byron Buxton was not in the Twins' starting lineup for a second consecutive game as he recovers from a sore back, but he sounded confident he would return as soon as Saturday.
Of course, he said that before hitting in the cage late Friday afternoon. He hadn't picked up a bat since Wednesday evening, when he smashed into the center-field wall at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium while chasing a ball and injured his back. He didn't start Thursday but entered as a pinch runner in the ninth inning, stole second base and scored the winning run on an Eddie Rosario single.
But he reminded everyone he was only out on Friday as a precaution.
"Just a little bit of soreness the other day," he said. "For the most part, it wasn't nothing that I couldn't play the next day. It's just one of those precautionary things, just giving me a couple days to get back."
Unfortunately for Buxton, he has had enough injuries in recent years for any bump or bruise to raise eyebrows. And he said during spring training that one reason he gained more than 20 pounds of muscle during the offseason was to take the pounding he gets when colliding with walls.
"It helped," he said.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Buxton should return to the lineup soon and was available off the bench Friday. And Buxton is eager to return to the lineup and will not change his style of play once he's back in the outfield.
"It's one of those things, yeah, I don't shy away from," he said. "It's one of those things that my dad kind of was [like] 'If you're going to play, you're going to play 110 percent,' and like go get it, so it's pretty installed in me. It's no cruise control with me."
