Twins reserve outfielder Kyle Garlick bucks a trend by showing power

FORT MYERS, FLA. – If Kyle Garlick wants to play for the Twins, he needs to stop hitting home runs.

At least, that's what their history says. Garlick, a reserve outfielder competing for a bench job with his third team in three years, pounded a Jorge Lopez fastball well over 400 feet to straightaway center field on Sunday, his fourth homer of the spring for a team on which nobody else has more than two.

"Nothing we're seeing is surprising to us," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of the 29-year-old Californian, who has slugged 91 minor league homers. "He's hitting the ball really, really hard."

He also could be fighting an odd precedent. In the past decade, only two Twins players have hit more than four home runs during the Grapefruit League season — ByungHo Park in 2017 and Luke Hughes in 2012, each with six — and neither of them ever hit another regular-season homer in the majors.

Then again, the Twins can now quantify how hard Garlick hits the ball, and the numbers make an interesting case for keeping him on the 26-man roster, perhaps as a righthanded platoon partner with Jake Cave. The 28th-round draft pick has played 42 big-league games over the past two seasons, with the Dodgers and Phillies.

"He hits the ball exceptionally hard, and that's played out this spring," said Derek Falvey, Twins president of baseball operations. "We have StatCast measures now, and some of the data we've got, his expected stats are matching his line. That's a real credit to how well he's swinging."

That power profile is why the Twins claimed him off waivers this winter — twice. They tried to acquire him in January when the Phillies needed a roster spot, but the Braves were awarded him because they had one fewer wins than the Twins last season. Atlanta kept him only three weeks, however, before needing another spot, too, and the Twins successfully claimed him.

"He's had a great spring," Baldelli said. "One thing we've learned is that he can run around the outfield a little bit, too. Pretty good athlete. He's a good, soft-spoken, nice, good person, too."

Players try to replicate regular-season conditions during spring training, so Kenta Maeda took advantage of an unusually cool Fort Myers evening, mid-60s and breezy, during his five-inning start on Saturday. It's as close as he will come in Florida, he figured, to the weather he'll face at Target Field next month.

Don't worry, Minnesota. He'll learn. He knows it.

"It's my first time I'll be pitching in such a cold climate and first time experiencing the real Minnesota weather," said Maeda, a former Los Angeles Dodger who, according to baseball-reference.com, has never pitched in an MLB game colder than 52 degrees at first pitch.

The Twins played 15 games in colder weather than that in 2019 alone.

With that in mind, after pitching an inning or two, Maeda went to the clubhouse while the Twins batted and put on a long-sleeve shirt under his jersey. "I haven't worn this in seven years," he said with a laugh. "That's what I worked on today, wearing long sleeves."

The Twins have no plans to designate a bench coach in the absence of Mike Bell, who underwent cancer surgery last month and remains at his home in Arizona, Falvey said, but they have discussed adding another member to Baldelli's staff on an interim basis.

"We've had a rotating group of other staff members who have joined us on the bench," including some minor league managers and coaches and field coordinator Kevin Morgan, Baldelli said. "It's gone very well. It's been very helpful to me."

So has the addition of Bill Evers, a longtime minor league manager who returned to the dugout this spring after staying home last year because of COVID concerns.

Under Baldelli's structure, "a lot of what a bench coach does happens in the other 21 hours of the day that don't include the game," including planning, organization and coordinating with the manager, players and front office, said Baldelli, who plans to make a decision about adding to his staff shortly before the season starts. "They make me better. That's what they do. Sometimes the game is almost secondary to the other things."

Specifically? "They listen to me talk nonsense when I get distracted," Baldelli joked. "I thank them for that as well."

Jorge Polanco returned to action Sunday, and even hit a home run in his first game since Wednesday, when he suffered an adductor strain after rolling over on a baseball. He's recovered so well, he'll likely play again Monday, Baldelli said.