Twins put Byron Buxton on 10-day injured list because of rib cage injury

The optimism surrounding Byron Buxton’s sore ribs turned into realism on Tuesday. It’s about to be August, after all.

Buxton, pulled from Saturday night’s game after telling trainer Nick Paparesta that he was experiencing pain in his ribs when he ran, was placed on the 10-day injured list before Tuesday’s game, allowing the Twins to activate catcher Ryan Jeffers from the paternity list.

The injury had been described as minor, especially after tests found no evidence of any structural damage to his ribs, but three days later, Buxton was still too sore to return to the lineup, so the Twins decided to give him another week off to let his ribs heal. It’s not clear how the injury happened — Buxton jumped into the center-field wall in the first inning of Saturday’s game to catch Luis Garcia’s deep fly ball, but he wasn’t removed from the game until six innings later, and he hasn’t spoken to the media since last Friday.

Buxton will be eligible to return from the injured list on Aug. 6, the final day of the Twins’ upcoming road trip to division rivals Cleveland and Detroit. Missing August games is nothing new for the All-Star center fielder; only in 2017, the healthiest season of his career, has Buxton not missed extended time with various injuries. Since 2018, in fact, Buxton has appeared in only 47 of the 195 games the Twins have played in August, and he’s now certain to miss the first five this year.

This new injury marks the second time Buxton has been sidelined this season; he spent two weeks on the concussion list in May after an outfield collision with shortstop Carlos Correa. But in most other ways, this has been perhaps Buxton’s most successful season. He entered Tuesday third on the Twins in plate appearances, and his 23 home runs, 59 RBI and .905 OPS are all best on the Twins, earning him a spot among the American League All-Stars earlier this month.

Harrison Bader took Buxton’s spot in center field on Tuesday, but that might be only a temporary solution, given other teams’ reported interest in trading for Bader before Thursday’s trade deadline. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Willi Castro — the latter also a potential trade target — are the other Twins with center field experience.

The decision likely came as a disappointment to the Twins and manager Rocco Baldelli, who said Sunday that the Twins had caught “a lucky break” because the injury wasn’t deemed serious. “It’s a good outcome. We’ll see how he is tomorrow, but to be day-to-day with what he left the game with, it’s a good thing,” Baldelli said at the time. “We’ll get him looked at by the trainers each day, get him a lot of treatment and hopefully he’ll be back very soon.”

“It’s impossible not to [think about it]. Your life gets flipped upside down. You’re with a different team, new city, new teammates — not to mention all the logistical parts for wives and families,” said Coulombe, father of two sons. “It’s definitely unsettling.”

Especially when the locker just a couple down from yours is suddenly vacant. When the Twins announced Monday that Chris Paddack had been dealt to the Tigers, Coulombe said, “It just became real. You don’t think it’s a real thing, and when one domino falls, you’re like, ‘OK, this is actually happening.’ But we don’t have control over that.”

Coulombe’s $3 million contract expires in November, so trading him could save the Twins $1 million, just as they saved more than $4 million in trading Paddack and Randy Dobnak. The prospect of such an unpredictable, life-changing day “is exciting,” Coulombe said, “but I can’t wait to get back to just focusing on the job.”

Jeffers was back in uniform on Tuesday, three days after the birth of his son Hayes. But Baldelli chose to play Christian Vázquez, saying “I don’t like playing guys when they’ve been helping at home for three days and not able to do baseball activity.”

When Jeffers arrived at Target Field, “he told me he wanted to play,” Baldelli said. “Said ‘I’ll be ready to go.’ I said, ‘Thank you.’ ”