Oswaldo Arcia has hit some colossal home runs in his career, so his one-word assessment of Byung Ho Park's thundercrack on Saturday carried some weight.
"Wow," Arcia said, shaking his head.
Yep, that describes it pretty well. After missing two eighth-inning pitches from Angels reliever Joe Smith, then watching a couple of pitches off the plate, Park stood in the box during the eighth inning, just a minute or two after Arcia's tiebreaking home run, and waited on another slider. It landed in the lap of a startled fan seated in Target Field's new center-field tavern, high above the batter's eye.
"He got a mistake breaking ball and he didn't miss it," manager Paul Molitor said of the missile, measured at an estimated 462 feet — making it the longest Target Field blast by a Twin since Jim Thome was launching satellites in 2012. "It was impressive. I'm starting to know why he picked that walk-up song," Molitor said, referring to the appropriately titled "Boom."
Park provided the game-winning double on Friday, then the tape-measure homer a day later, a good sign that he's growing more comfortable in his new home. After all, he's had to dance in the Twins' postgame celebration for two consecutive days.
"It feels great. Yesterday we broke the losing streak, today we got a winning streak," he said through an interpreter.
Molitor clearly trusts the South Korean rookie more all the time, including in the field. Park made a diving stop of a Cliff Pennington smash in the fourth inning from his first base position, converting the likely hit into an out. And at the plate, he's impressed with how quickly Park is learning.
"He's a smart hitter. He's trying to figure things out as he goes. He has a tendency to sit on pitches a little bit more than most hitters do, but a lot of power hitters are like that," Molitor said. "He's making adjustments on the fly. The one thing I don't think people realize is, there's something about seeing [pitchers] multiple times over the years, and he's seeing everybody for the first time. That's a tough thing to ask a guy."
It's also tough to get Park to admire his own handiwork. Asked if he was impressed by his own power, Park smiled and shrugged. "The wind was blowing out," he explained. Maybe he meant the jet stream.
O'Rourke arrives
Ryan O'Rourke reported to the Twins on Saturday, filling in for Fernando Abad over the weekend. Abad went on the bereavement list while he attends his grandmother's funeral in the Dominican Republic and should be back Monday.
For O'Rourke, it's a chance to remind the Twins that he's still got major league pitches.
"We saw enough of him last year to know what he's capable of," Molitor said. "The one knock on him has been his difficulty with righthanded hitters … but he's improved in that regard."
Etc.
• Byron Buxton, who has a bruised left hand, took batting practice on Saturday with no problems, so he could return as soon as Sunday.
• Trevor Plouffe hit a home run and an RBI double, becoming the first Twin this season to record two RBI in the same game. Arcia joined him by homering in the eighth inning, after contributing an RBI single in the first.
• All seven of the Twins' home runs this season have been solo shots.
