Notes: Buxton is back; home opener tribute

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Bomba Squad is finally at full strength.

Twins center fielder Byron Buxton returned to the lineup and hit ninth in Tuesday night's home opener at Target Field, completing his comeback from a left foot sprain sustained July 13 that caused him to miss the end of Summer Camp and the first three games of Minnesota's 2020 campaign.

He immediately provided a spark, collecting an RBI in his first plate appearance on a fielder's choice -- with a 109.7 mph exit velocity -- for the Twins' first run in their 6-3 victory over the Cardinals.

In doing so, Buxton finally completed the Twins' upgraded lineup juggernaut, featuring Josh Donaldson at third base in addition to the returning power from the 2019 campaign. Because of injuries to Buxton and Miguel Sanó, the Twins hadn't seen their full nine in a lineup together until Tuesday.

How important is Buxton to this lineup? Consider that the 2019 Twins were 62-25 when Buxton played and 39-36 when he didn't.

"The energy that we always talk about when he's out there and patrolling center field and doing his thing, and getting on base and making things happen, it's a big pick-me-up for guys," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Sometimes, it's hard to put your thumb exactly on why that is, why certain players have that. But one thing we know -- and anyone knows that's spent time with Buck, played with him, coached him -- is that he has it."

Baldelli offered no guarantees that Buxton will immediately get a full workload in the coming days, which likely means that Jake Cave will see additional opportunities to swing the bat. Cave went 3-for-9 with a pair of singles and a grand slam during the club's season-opening series against the White Sox.

"[Buxton] got a lot a lot of great work in, but he's still on a very short [Summer Camp] ramp-up," Baldelli said. "So he will be out there today and assess him after the game. I don't think there's any way to know anything for certain until he comes out. And we will probably treat this first week a little bit differently than you normally would in the middle of a long season."

Tribute to George Floyd, lives lost to COVID-19
Prior to every season's home opener, the Twins pay tribute to the members of the organization's extended family that lost their lives in the previous year. Notably, the Twins extended a video tribute to Minor League infielder Ryan Costello, who died during the offseason in New Zealand at age 23.

This season, the Twins also paid tribute to George Floyd, who was killed by police on May 25 in South Minneapolis. A large picture of Floyd was displayed across the scoreboard as the teams lined up down the baselines, with a new "Black Lives Matter" banner adorning the right-field wall, several feet away from another wide banner showing "Justice for George Floyd."

The Twins continued the ceremony by showing a video of a performance of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Often called the Black national anthem, it was performed by Sounds of Blackness, a three-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble based in the Twin Cities.

Later in the evening, at 8:46 p.m. CT, the Twins paused the game and held a ceremonial moment of silence for Floyd, who died after his neck was compressed by a police officer for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

The Twins also paid tribute to first responders and front-line workers for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic and celebrated 60 years of Twins baseball with a recorded video featuring a group of Twins legends, including Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, Paul Molitor, Kent Hrbek, Frank Viola, Dan Gladden, Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, Rod Carew and Tony Oliva.

Ready for 36 games in 37 days
Ready or not, here comes the Twins' most grueling stretch of the 2020 season.

Starting with the home opener, the Twins will play 36 games in 37 days through Sept. 2. The club's only off-day in that stretch is Aug. 13, sandwiched between a stretch of 16 games and another run of 20. Unusual as it may be, the Twins actually feel quite prepared due to the depth and breadth of their expanded roster, and Baldelli cautioned that his club will still need to focus on each day and not get caught up in the daunting schedule.

"We're as prepared as you could possibly be to handle something like that," Baldelli said. "MLB also gave us all a good leg to stand on with the expanded rosters, which really does help out in a lot of ways, both position player-wise and pitching depth-wise. I would say that 36 games in 37 days is daunting if you do look at it like that, but frankly, if you start looking ahead too far, you can go astray."

Taylor Rogers pointed to both the Twins' starting depth and versatility among position players as a reason to be confident during this stretch. Randy Dobnak and Lewis Thorpe were already solid in their first outings of the regular season, and Devin Smeltzer also has a successful track record. Marwin González also offers a great luxury in his ability to slot in just about anywhere to give somebody a day off. Cave's hot start certainly doesn't hurt the outfield depth, either.

"Our ballclub is prepared for something like that," Rogers said. "And that, I think, gives us a little bit of ease mentally. ... Obviously, we're taking care of ourselves off the field, protocol-wise, and hopefully we keep things going. But our lineup is set up pretty good."

Twins exercise caution in wake of Marlins news
Though the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Marlins' clubhouse has been a concerning topic of conversation around the Twins' clubhouse, president of baseball operations Derek Falvey reported Tuesday that Minnesota's most recent round of tests all came back negative following the club's season-opening road trip to Chicago.

Falvey has been hoping to learn from the experiences of the Marlins, Phillies and other teams around MLB to continue to educate and adapt the Twins' approach to handling COVID protocols within their clubhouse.

"I'm concerned first and foremost for the health of all their players and staff and across our industry and how it impacts people," Falvey said. "But the way I look at it is, we need to take a step back, learn from what transpired, what we can learn about the clubhouse environment, what we can gather from travel protocols. Is there something we can establish that will help us better prepare what we're going to do?"

Rogers, the Twins' representative to the MLB Players Association, said he has the same degree of confidence in the protocols as before and hoped to use the recent news as a means to reinforce the importance of strict adherence to the protocol among his teammates.

"I think as time went along, through Summer Camp, you've seen that positive tests were low," Rogers said. "And I think maybe there was a possibility people will get complacent with every protocol we had. I think this is just a thing to tell you to reassess where you're at and take the protocols more seriously and know that this can happen and try to prevent it. Control what we can control. That's all we can do from here."