The Twins’ ineptitude as a team should not cause Byron Buxton’s incredible 2025 season to be forgotten or overlooked. It’s been an outstanding, career-best campaign for Minnesota’s star center fielder, who has a real chance to finish in the top 10 in AL MVP voting for the first time.

Buxton added to his career year by supplying all of the Twins’ offense in a 4-0 win over the Rangers on Thursday afternoon. He crushed two home runs to nearly identical spots at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX.

One day after demolishing a leadoff homer against Jacob deGrom, Buxton did it again, taking the first pitch of the contest from Tyler Mahle and blasting it into the visitor’s bullpen in left-center for his 33rd big fly of the year.

Back-to-back leadoff homers for Byron Buxton 🤩 pic.twitter.com/NAJRpMPdbf

— Twins.TV (@twinstv) September 25, 2025

After that very first pitch, it was a pitcher’s duel between Mahle and Bailey Ober, with neither team scoring again until the eighth inning. Edouard Julien singled to lead off that inning, Christian Vazquez singled, and Buxton destroyed a first-pitch cutter from Chris Martin into the same bullpen he visited earlier in the day.

2 homers today
34 on the season

Byron Buxton is balling out 😤 pic.twitter.com/sEwhhHJfSo

— MLB (@MLB) September 25, 2025

According to MLB’s Statcast, both balls left Buxton’s bat at between 110-111 miles per hour. The first had a launch angle of 22 degrees and an estimated distance of 418 feet. The second had a launch angle of 23 degrees and an estimated distance of 437 feet. They both entered the Twins’ bullpen just to the left of the 410 sign, but the second one traveled a touch further, making it an easy grab for the bullpen catcher.

It’s the fourth multi-homer game of the season for Buxton and his third game with four or more RBI.

Dating back to Wednesday’s 4-1 loss, each of the last five Twins runs have come on three Buxton home runs. That’s somewhat fitting for the 69-90 season they’ve had, where Buxton has embodied the meme of a shiny sports car parked next to a rundown-looking mobile home.

Buxton is up to 34 home runs and 24 stolen bases in 124 games. He’s hit .265 with an .879 OPS. He also leads the Twins in hits (127), runs (96), and RBI (82). With three games to play, Buxton has an outside shot at the first 100-run season by a Twins player since Jorge Polanco in 2019. He’s already joined Kirby Puckett (31 homers, 20 steals in 1986) as the only other member of the 30-20 club in Twins history.

And by staying mostly healthy, Buxton has also hit some incentives in his contract. He earned a $500,000 bonus for his 502nd plate appearance of the season last week, then got another $500K on Thursday with plate appearance No. 533. He could also receive $3 million or more by finishing in the top 10 in AL MVP voting. Coming into Thursday’s game, Fangraphs had Buxton tied for 10th in WAR among all AL players.

The Twins’ other standout of the game was Ober, who capped a rough season with a sharp performance. He allowed just two hits and one walk over six scoreless innings, striking out five. All three Twins starting pitchers, including two younger arms, shined in this week’s 2-1 series win over a recently-eliminated Rangers team.

The Twins will wrap up their season with three games in Philadelphia this weekend. Joe Ryan, Mick Abel, and Simeon Woods Richardson are set to start on the mound.