Byron Buxton back in Twins' lineup for Joe Ryan-Paul Skenes showdown

Twins All-Star Byron Buxton is back in the lineup for Friday night's highly-anticipated pitching matchup between Joe Ryan and Paul Skenes at Target Field. He's hitting leadoff and playing center field, as usual.

Buxton departed Wednesday's game against the Cubs an inning after he was hit on the left hand by a 98 mile-per-hour fastball in his first plate appearance. He was held out of the lineup for Thursday afternoon's series finale, but he avoided any sort of serious injury and will be back out there to begin the Twins' last series before he and Ryan head to Atlanta for All-Star week.

It should be quite the mid-July Friday night at the ballpark in downtown Minneapolis. Ryan and Skenes, two All-Star pitchers, will be on the mound. Nelly will perform a postgame concert. And thankfully, the weather forecast looks OK after some previous concern about storms.

The Twins have never faced Skenes, the second-year sensation who is among a very short list of starting pitchers (along with Tarik Skubal and Zack Wheeler) with a case to be considered the best in the world. Across 42 major league starts, the 23-year-old Skenes has a 1.95 ERA with 295 strikeouts and 62 walks in 249 innings. His fastball sits at 98-99 MPH and is paired with a wide array of secondary offerings — he has seven different classified pitches — that make him very tough to hit.

The 38-56 Pirates, who are tied for dead last with a .641 team OPS, haven't given Skenes much run support. He has a 4-7 decision record in his 19 starts this season despite having the best ERA in baseball. The Pirates are 9-10 in those games. On paper, this is an excellent matchup for Ryan, who has a 2.76 ERA and is among the league leaders in WHIP and opponent batting average.

Runs might be at a premium on Friday night. Here's the Twins' full lineup: