Kirilloff makes the most of opportunity with walk-off knock
MINNEAPOLIS — If the Twins had caught to their authentic plan, Alex Kirilloff may not even have been at Target Field on Wednesday evening.
They’ve acquired to be fairly glad they modified their minds.
Just 4 video games into his return to the Major League roster, Kirilloff offered the clutch hit this lineup desperately wanted, knocking his first profession walk-off single within the eleventh inning that gave the Twins a 4-3 victory over the Padres. The win snapped a three-game shedding streak and helped money in one more stingy effort from all the pitching workers — a lot of which have gone to waste of late.
“He doesn’t have much fear,” supervisor Rocco Baldelli stated. “He goes up there in big spots and just looks for a pitch that he thinks he can handle, and simplifies it. That was big for us. We needed someone to just come up and just make it happen, and he did that today. It was nice.”
Griffin Jax escaped a bases-loaded jam within the eleventh inning towards the center of the San Diego lineup, and after the Padres issued an intentional stroll to Carlos Correa within the backside of the body, Kirilloff roped a 2-0 fastball from reliever Domingo Tapia down the right-field line, scoring Max Kepler for the Twins’ third walk-off win of ‘23.
After the third inning, the Twins’ offense couldn’t even get a participant to second base till the rulebook did the job for them in further innings. But eventually, that’s when the clutch hits began to fall, beginning with Donovan Solano’s game-tying single off Josh Hader within the backside of the tenth, and ending with Kirilloff’s winner.
“It’s definitely a cool feeling, but obviously, the most important thing is playing good baseball and putting together winning games,” Kirilloff stated. “We had a lot of good things going for us today — good offense, some good at-bats, really good pitching and good defense as well. That’s a good recipe to keep stacking and winning games.”
Though the Twins initially left Kirilloff in Triple-A following the completion of his rehab task on April 30 because of a perceived lack of taking part in time with the large membership, they made a snap determination to make the most of a chance to name him up early and created that taking part in time by making a tricky determination to ship down Trevor Larnach.
Since then, Kirilloff has taken a number of the finest plate appearances on the workforce — and that’s what the Twins anticipate when he’s wholesome.
Since his return, he’s 3-for-9 with 5 walks and just one strikeout — and whether or not he’s dealing with a fastball on the palms like Tapia’s providing within the eleventh or a curveball nicely under the zone from Padres starter Seth Lugo within the third, Kirilloff’s flatter swing and intuition for getting the barrel to the ball helps him do harm to all fields when he’s at his finest.
“I think he brings a different flavor to our lineup just because of the pitches that he can hit and the way he approaches at-bats,” Baldelli stated. “The pitches he can do damage on, the pitches that he can spray to different parts of the field. … If the pitcher pitches him in different ways, he can find ways to get the barrel to it.”
And, nicely, the Twins hope this lasts longer than it has within the final two years — and paves the way in which for the fruitful, middle-of-the-order presence the Twins have lengthy envisioned for Kirilloff as certainly one of their constructing blocks of the longer term.
This model of Kirilloff — assured, affected person, driving the ball with authority — has been a uncommon sight on the recreation’s highest degree as he’s handled the recurring wrist points that led to 2 season-ending surgical procedures in two years after he tried and didn’t play by the ache every time.
This hitter may nicely be the presence the Twins have been missing as their lineup has began urgent amid its latest struggles, increasing the zone and resulting in the third-highest strikeout charge in baseball coming into Wednesday. Kirilloff has reached base a number of occasions in every of his three begins — and that’s to not point out the diving catch towards Juan Soto — simply one of many Twins’ spectacular defensive performs — to start out an unassisted double play at first base to finish the fourth inning.
For the primary time in an extended whereas, the wrist isn’t the story with Kirilloff — they usually’ve wanted his jolt.
“It feels good to feel healthy and be back here and playing ball,” Kirilloff stated.
