Twins’ Byron Buxton sends a reminder and a revelation: He’s fast, and he’s healthy

Two home games, two stolen bases, two runs scored mostly through his speed. It seems crazy to contemplate for a player once known as the fastest in baseball, but Byron Buxton may have a new weapon at his disposal this year.

The 31-year-old senior member of the Twins was hit on the left hand by a Spencer Arrighetti fastball Saturday and immediately stole second base. Thus energized, the Twins went on to score six runs in the inning, staking them to all the lead they would need in a 6-1 victory over Houston.

“It’s fun, obviously, to be able to start something, to get that inning going,” Buxton said. “That’s kind of what I want to do [more frequently]. Except get hit by a pitch.”

For all of his speed, for all of his record-setting efficiency on the bases — his 88.7% success rate in steal attempts is the best in MLB history among players with more than 75 stolen bases — Buxton has not made swiping bases a major part of his game. It’s mostly because of various leg injuries, but Buxton has stolen more than 20 bases only once in his career, when he went 29-for-30 in 2017, and has only 95 over his career.

But he describes himself as healthier than he’s been in years. So might he become more of a threat on the bases this year than he’s been in the past?

“One thousand percent,” Buxton said. “But it’s also about me being smart, feeling good. [I’m] starting to get used to who I am, as far as, you know, making the right reads, making the right choices to steal bases. Just making sure that not only am I giving myself the best opportunity but the team as well.”

That sounds good to his manager.

“He’s a jump-starter. He always gets something going and makes something happen because he can force the issue,” Rocco Baldelli said. “He doesn’t always have to wait for the game to come to him. He can actually just make things happen on the field. [After getting hit], he had a little extra motivation to get aggressive. He got a pretty good jump, got us going, and then things start happening.”

One thing that happened, Buxton sounded a little embarrassed to admit, is that he thought he was in danger of being thrown out on the bases when Ty France singled on a shallow fly ball to left. Buxton feared left fielder Jose Altuve might catch it, so he only went halfway to third.

“I thought he deked me, I ain’t gonna lie,” Buxton said. Suddenly, he realized, “Oh, it’s going to drop. But by then, I was going backwards,” he said. “So my biggest goal was just not to let him throw me out at third base.”

Instead, Altuve dropped the ball as he tried to throw it, and Buxton raced home with the Twins’ first run. Five more scored in the inning.

“Lot of pride. I wouldn’t say I’m the Energizer Bunny, but when it starts, it kind of comes in bunches,” Buxton said of kick-starting the rally. “When we do what we know what we’re capable of doing, we put together those solid at-bats, and it leads to that. So it’s fun.”

It takes a lot more than nine runs and three homers to shake Chris Paddack’s confidence. He intends to prove it Sunday.

“I woke up the next morning with a smile on my face,” Paddack said of Monday’s disastrous start against the White Sox, a 9-0 loss in which he gave up all the runs and recorded only 10 outs. “I’m excited for the opportunity in front of me, the opportunity to continue to learn, to get better.”

It’s easy to be skeptical, but that attitude has worked for Paddack in the past. Nine times in his seven-year career, Paddack has allowed six or more runs in a start. Each time, he rebounded impressively in his next start, posting a 2.15 ERA over 54 ⅓ innings and pitching his team to victory in seven of them. And in his previous two rough starts for the Twins? He followed up with 13 ⅓ shutout innings.

“You can’t let bad outings snowball,” Paddack said. “You can’t let doubt creep in. If you don’t believe you’re capable of pitching at this level, it’s going to eat you up.”

The part that bugs Paddack isn’t the homers, he said, but the four walks, a career high, and the fact that the leadoff hitter reached base in all four innings he was on the mound.

“Someone was on base the entire time I was out there, practically. It makes it a lot more work,” Paddack said. “To be honest, I felt good about my pitches, good about getting to two strikes consistently. But [the White Sox] wouldn’t chase two-strike pitches. The exact same game plan against a different opponent might be completely different. I still feel good about the plan. And good about [Sunday].”

For the fourth time in the season’s first eight games, the St. Paul Saints were rained out Saturday. Since they already played a doubleheader Friday to make up one rainout, Saturday’s game against the Columbus Clippers will be made up the next time the Saints visit Columbus, in the final week of April.

The makeup is tentatively scheduled for April 29 but could be changed since St. Paul has doubleheaders scheduled for April 23 and 25, too, to make up last weekend’s rainouts at CHS Field. Under league rules, both teams’ farm directors must give permission for their clubs to play three doubleheaders in a seven-day period.