It’s become part of the rhythm of a baseball season. Mike Trout will tweak something or leave a game early, and every baseball fan will sigh and wonder why they can’t have nice things. We all feel a bit deprived when Trout misses a large chunk of time. This will also happen if Shohei Ohtani misses a start or leaves a game early. They heard a similar rumble of boredom when it was announced that Fernando Tatis Jr. would be out for months, just like last year when his shoulder started to get spongy.
But if Byron Buxton gets hurt, nary a wave. Because that’s expected. It would actually be a surprise if Buxton ever completed a full season’s workload considering he’s only done it once in seven years.
And yet the size of the error is the same. At least that’s what Buxton seems keen to prove when he’s on the field lately.
Last year, for almost a third of the season he was healthy, Buxton was the best player in baseball. Despite only playing 61 games, Buxton ranked in the top 35 in WAR whether you go by FanGraphs or Baseball Reference. He was a dervis. FanGraphs let him save the fourth most defensive runs in that pittance of 61 games in midfield. It was an orgy of power and defense.
But… 61 games. That’s always the catch. He’s missed quite a bit this year and had a fright in his knee last week. But then there is also this:
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Relax!
Has four different speeds, ten different heads for different body parts and is super easy to use thanks to an LED display and its light weight.
That’s 469-foot walk-off homers as Liam Hendriks grooved a fastball for a 3-1 in the 10th. No matter what volume you have your computer or phone set to, the cracking of that contact will get through and smack you in the brain.
That wasn’t all Buxton did yesterday as he homed earlier in the game to tie it at 3-3. On Saturday he went 4-for-4 with a homer and a double and two RBI. Sure, it helps Buxton’s cause that the White Sox are currently under an Anansi curse of sorts and managed by one scarcely sentient clusters of moles, who for some reason was more scared of Luis Arraez than Buxton in that 10th inning yesterday. But happiness can only give you the platform, you still have to use it.
Buxton is currently at 1,200 OPS and was already 1.1 fWAR in just nine games, which would put him on pace for a 10-WAR season, territory where only the true gods walk. Also, right now, nobody is hitting the ball harder than Buxton, who is averaging 96.6 MPH on his exit speed. And according to StatCast, he’s already given the Twins two above-average outs in the field.
But of course nobody expects that. Buxton has never been able to stay on the field. He only gives insights. Except these insights are from the most exciting player in the game. People sometimes bemoan Trout’s lack of panache, a lack of swagger. You wonder what good he could do to the game if only he had a personality. Well, he would be Byron Buxton. Comparisons to Eric Davis have faded, largely because Davis has been on and off the field for the Reds. But it’s still the most fitting, especially given how seldom Buxton actually makes it to the post.
But his playing has a thrash that is second to none. It’s noisy. Just give us a full season so we can meet the noise, Byron, and the baseball gods.
The angel of death
Speaking of baseball gods, they really are a sneaky cult as they keep giving us Angel Hernandez behind the plate. Here are some highlights:
Kyle Schwarber couldn’t take it anymore when he was called by Hernandez in Philly’s 1-0 loss to the Brewers last night:
Hernandez’s inability to keep his strike that the Zone is amoeba-shaped is hardly a secret, and fans and players have lamented this for years. So how does he keep ending up behind the plate? Who evaluates that? Do they have any teeth to do something about it? We all see it, everyone knows it, and yet nothing changes.
Save us, robo-umps. You are our only hope.
