Buxton’s game-saving catch helps Twins beat White Sox
By Betsy Helfand, Pioneer Press – April 22, 2025
Standing on the mound, watching the ball off Andrew Benintendi’s bat tail away from Byron Buxton, Jhoan Duran didn’t think the outfielder had a chance at it.
Most outfielders wouldn’t. Byron Buxton isn’t most outfielders.
The moment Benintendi struck the ball, Buxton was off to the races, verging to his left as he ran back towards the wall. At the last second, Buxton left his legs, diving for the ball and securing it—and with it, a Twins win—in his glove.
Had he not caught the ball, the runners on second and third would have scored, tying the game. Instead, his game-saving catch meant the Twins beat the White Sox 4-2 in the series opener on Tuesday night at Target Field.
On the mound, Duran raised his arms and started excitedly jumping up and down.
“He told me in the past day or earlier, ‘Hey, I got you,’ ” Duran said. “Now, I know what that means.”
Unlike Duran, Buxton believed he had a shot at it—mostly because he believes he has a chance at everything.
“I’ve just got to run,” Buxton said. “I knew off the jump I had to get on my horses. The biggest thing is making sure I had a good line to the ball, because the ball didn’t get up too high for me to run up under it. Being able to (have) the right instincts and make the first step was a big key to that.”
As Buxton ran towards right field, right fielder DaShawn Keirsey Jr., no stranger to good catches himself, was running towards center. From his vantage point, Keirsey said the play unfolded in slow motion. It was “one of the most incredible catches,” Keirsey said he had ever seen.
“The athleticism, the range, the body control to make that play, all things we’ve seen from him before,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “And stuff that you don’t see every day at the baseball field.”
In a career full of web gems, it was one of the best catches Buxton has made, especially given the context. That was, he believed, the first time he had ended a game with a catch like that.
Buxton’s highlight-reel play came on a day where the Twins (8-15) took advantage of some poor defense by the White Sox (5-18) for their first two runs, taking what they were given on a night where hits were hard to come by.
In the second inning, down a run, shortstop Carlos Correa grounded a ball towards first baseman Andrew Vaughn. Second baseman Lenyn Sosa was unable to catch Vaughn’s thrown, and instead of it being a rally-killing double play, the Twins had two runners on and nobody out.
They got one run out of the situation when Ty France found a hole in the right side of the infield, and his single tied the game.
Minnesota Twins’ Luke Keaschall (15) beats the tag by Chicago White Sox shortstop Jacob Amaya (8) to steal second base during the third inning of a baseball game Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Minneapolis. | AP Photo/Abbie Parr
An inning later, rookie Luke Keaschall helped make things happen with his legs. After drawing a two-out walk and stealing second, some aggressive baserunning paid off. The next batter, Trevor Larnach, hit a little tapper in front of the plate, but when catcher Edgar Quero’s throw hit Larnach in the back, Keaschall kept running, speeding home from second.
“I round (third) base hard,” Keaschall said. “The second I saw it kick, I just kept my momentum going, and there was nobody at home. So I knew I was going to be safe.”
He jogged home the second time around—after another walk and stolen base—scoring on Larnach’s two-run missile to right in the eighth inning, the outfielder’s second home run of the season.
Larnach’s blast gave the Twins much-needed breathing room on a night where it seemed like the White Sox were constantly threatening to break through, putting runners on in seven of nine innings.
Starter Bailey Ober maneuvered around traffic in his six innings, getting a pair of double-play balls and limiting the damage to just one run in the second when the White Sox loaded the bases.
Griffin Jax and Louie Varland each turned in scoreless innings before Duran ran into trouble and Buxton came in to save the day.
“I take a lot of pride in telling our pitchers I’ve got their back, and I take it to heart,” Buxton said. “It ain’t just them on the pitcher’s mound when I’m out there in center.”
TOP PHOTO: Minnesota Twins center fielder Byron Buxton (25) catches a fly out by Chicago White Sox’s Andrew Benintendi (23) as the final out of a baseball game Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr