New Delhi, July 30 -- MINNEAPOLIS - In six of their twelve games since the All-Star break, the Minnesota Twins scored two runs or fewer. That stretch of offensive failure arrived even when Byron Buxton was in the lineup, which makes the news from Wednesday considerably harder to absorb. The Twins placed their center fielder on the 10-day injured list with right hip impingement, the second time in less than three weeks the same diagnosis has shelved him, and the question of how a 54-55 franchise navigates through the trade deadline and into October became considerably harder to answer.

The sequence that produced this IL placement is specific enough to sting. Buxton had missed 15 days in early July with the same right hip, returned on July...