While the Minnesota Twins played themselves out of AL Central contender status with their miserable first 2½ months, they still had the capacity to look like AL Central contenders for any stretch of time from here on out, especially as long as Byron Buxton remained healthy.
Unfortunately for the Twins, that length of time turned out to be three games. Buxton got hit by a pitch and suffered a fracture of his left pinky finger on Monday. He had just returned from a hip strain that cost him six weeks, and now he's expected to miss another serious chunk of time. Old friend Dan Hayes says Buxton will be out at least a month. During that stretch, the White Sox and Twins will play nine times, and their final meeting of 2021 isn't far beyond that (Aug. 9-11).
His absence during these series is no small deal. Buxton killed the Sox on both sides of the ball throughout his career, hitting .270/.313/.536 with 11 homers over 58 games, compared to a career line of .238/.289/.430 over that time. The 2021 version of Buxton appeared to be an MVP candidate, with his .369/.409/.767 line and golden glovework generating 3 WAR in just 27 games. If the White Sox never see him this year, it'll be a boon for them while a loss for baseball as a whole.
Elsewhere in the AL Central on Monday, Aaron Civale departed Cleveland's 4-0 victory over the Cubs with a finger issue. The severity of the injury is unknown, but should Civale have to visit the IL, it could shove all of Cleveland's Opening Day rotation off the roster at the same time. Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac are injured, while Logan Allen and Triston McKenzie were demoted to Triple-A Columbus. The White Sox are dealing with health issues for entire units as well, but injury clusters like Cleveland's are why Chicago is still only middle of the pack for injury woes despite missing a whole outfield.
When assessing the 2021 MLB season from this lens, it's looking a lot like "War Games," where the only way to win is not to play. The White Sox were mercifully idle on Monday and are off on Thursday as well.
SPARE PARTS
Another thing the White Sox missed by not playing on Monday? The first day of umpire inspections, which were conducted without incident.
Like many of his brethren, Lucas Giolito isn't thrilled about the change in the middle of the season, noting Tyler Glasnow's discomfort and subsequent injury during his start against the White Sox. For what it's worth, Giolito and Dylan Cease, the two White Sox pitchers whose 2021 spin-rate increases might generate reflexive suspicion, didn't lose any of it over the phase-out period over the last two-plus weeks. Pitchers as a whole can't say the same.
There's a lot that's remarkable about Yasmani Grandal's demented .166/.385/.377 line, but what sticks out to me is just how persistent it's been. He last had an average above the Mendoza Line on April 8. He's hitting .231/.385/.462 in June with fewer true outcomes, so you might have to (not) enjoy it while is lasts.
One of the reasons I think Lance Lynn will age well: His arsenal of trustworthy fastball varieties allows him to make subtle shifts as hitters start getting used to the way he's doing things, rather than requiring an advancement of a pitch he's seldom used or some other reinvention. In this case, he's increased his effectiveness against righties by using his cutter more against them.
Relievers are affected by rough starts more than any other player, because every later outing that would normally be chalked up to a bout of mortality looks like a relapse. That said, I still don't know what to make of Evan Marshall. James Fegan relays Marshall's own assessment of his rocky start:
In another view of how spring training results can be misleading, Marshall was so dominant in the Cactus League that by his assessment, he started experimenting with trying to add extra action and finish to his pitches, subsequently throwing off his mechanics. Reviewing his mechanics revealed that his delivery had become infested with side-to-side movement, and back-to-back two-walk outings in early May prompted him to install delivery adjustments. Since then, he’s walked one hitter and struck out 17 in 12 2/3 innings, not allowing an earned run in 10 of 12 appearances.
All we can do is take his word for it, but it's a less forgiving world when Codi Heuer and Aaron Bummer have their own battles with what they think they've been doing wrong.
While the Elias Sports Bureau is still figuring out how to best incorporate Negro Leagues statistics into the official context of Major League Baseball's records, Baseball-Reference.com went ahead and combined the records for public presentation and consumption.
As somebody who was so used to seeing Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby and Shoeless Joe Jackson at the top of the all-time batting average leaderboard, it's definitely weird seeing Oscar Charleston sneak into the silver-medal position. It doesn't strike my brain as "correct" right now, and it may never fully merge, because I know that Charleston didn't play in the same league. But that also registers to me as the point of this -- Charleston was an MLB talent and played in the best stateside professional league that people of his skin color and race were allowed to, so if the record books are way more complicated than they used to be, the sport has nobody to blame but itself.
As I've said before, the movement makes a lot more sense at the individual level. I used Minnie Miñoso as a leading example, and sure enough, his page now shows him at 2,110 career hits, rather than 1,944. What's more important is that it shows his career beginning at age 20 with the New York Cubans, not age 23 with a Cleveland cup of coffee.
What he did over those three years in New York isn't as complete and thorough as all the MLB seasons that came after. He only played 111 official games, and stats like strikeouts and unsuccessful stolen-base attempts aren't tracked, so they visually don't compare to the wall of stats that followed over the remainder of his career. It's also besides the point. The entirety of his numbers may not yet be accounted for, but the entirety of his career is there for all to see.
As always, consider a donation or membership to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
(Photo by Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire)
