The game? It was good. Royce Lewis hit a game-tying homer in the eighth inning and Willi Castro’s sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the ninth inning gave the Twins a 7-6 walk-off win over the Cleveland Guardians Thursday night.
Overshadowing the victory, however, was Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Max Kepler all leaving the game early for health reasons.
Buxton was hit in the ribs by a 96 mph fastball in the fourth inning. He left the game and was replaced by Donovan Solano. Buxton said afterward that he felt “alright,” but the Twins are going to have him examined more thoroughly on Friday.
The Correa situation is more worrisome because he left the game after aggravating the plantar fasciitis in his left foot. It happened while he was warming up before the top of the seventh.
“Throughout the entire inning, all the groundballs, every step I was taking, it was really painful,” Correa told reporters afterward. “I was trying to stay, stay, stay, but it kept getting worse and worse and worse. The last thing I want is to miss a lot of time because I’m not being smart about it.”
Correa will be evaluated again by medical staff on Friday.
Kepler left the game with a migraine and his status for Friday night’s game against Cleveland is unclear.
