Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Sunday, June 4, 2017

Sixteen years after No. 1 pick, no regrets for Twins or Joe Mauer. (Miler) p. 1 Albert Pujols reaches 600 career home runs with grand slam in 7-2 win over Twins. Star Tribune (Neal III) p. 5 Major League Baseball is enjoying a power surge. Star Tribune(Miller) p. 6 Twins' Robbie Grossman shows he can be aggressive, too. Star Tribune (Neal III) p. 8 Albert Pujols hits 600th home run as Angels pound Twins. Pioneer Press (D’Hippolito) p. 9 Charley Walters: The way he’s hitting, Joe Mauer might have a .300 season for Twins. Pioneer Press (Walters) p. 10 Grossman's consistency a plus for Twins. MLB (Bollinger) p. 14 Santana happy for former teammate Pujols. MLB (Bollinger) p. 14 Kepler homers but Twins lose on historic slam. MLB (Bollinger and Jones) p. 15 Twins topped by Angels as Pujols hits 600th career home run. AP p. 16

Sixteen years after No. 1 pick, no regrets for Twins or Joe Mauer Phil Miller | Star Tribune | June 3, 2017

The conference call had begun, and a voice in New York was slowly and deliberately taking roll, making sure each major league team was connected, could hear clearly, and was ready to start. The 2001 MLB draft was about to begin, and the Twins still didn’t have an answer. “Cleveland … ready. Colorado … ready. Detroit … ready,” the voice over the speaker phone squawked into a large, windowless conference room in the basement of the Metrodome, the volume cranked to be heard over the clatter of the stadium kitchen in the next room. Nearly two dozen Twins scouts and supervisors were gathered in the “dungeon,” as they called it, with white-erase boards lining the walls and scouting reports spread out on the table. Air conditioning sporadically kicked on to circulate the air, heavy with the smell of fryer grease. Joel Lepel, the Twins’ Midwest scouting supervisor, walked into the room as the roll call neared its end, having just listened in on one final round of last-ditch phone calls. As General Manager Terry Ryan and assistant GM Wayne Krivsky walked in behind him, Lepel looked at scouting director Mike Radcliff, sitting at the head of the table in front of the phone, and shook his head. No deal. “Take who you want,” Lepel said. Radcliff looked around the room. He looked at Ryan, who had already given his blessing. He looked at the other assembled scouts, some who agreed with him, some who did not. “I know some guys weren’t sure what I was going to say,” Radcliff says now. The roll call ended just after noon, and the disembodied voice on the line said the draft would now begin. “Minnesota has the first pick,” it said, and then paused, waiting. Radcliff leaned forward and hit the “talk” button on the speaker. Joe Mauer stood impatiently in his parents’ bedroom. There was a party about to start downstairs in the Mauers’ St. Paul home, where a couple of dozen of his Cretin-Derham Hall teammates, mostly his fellow seniors, had gathered, and the 18-year-old ballplayer was eager to join them. They had to make this quick, after all, because they had an important baseball game to play that afternoon, the Section 3 championship against Woodbury. They just needed to know what they were celebrating.

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“We really didn’t know what was going to happen at that point,” Mauer said. “The Twins called right before the draft, like 10 [minutes] to noon, and said they were talking about an agreement with somebody [else], but we want you, and here’s [the bonus] we want you for. And my parents were like, ‘Well, that’s not what we talked about.’ And when they hung up, we just looked at each other. I was like, ‘So is that it?’ “ Just five miles away, the Twins were poised to make their selection, but there was no TV show back then, no pick-by-pick breakdown. Just a couple of years earlier, MLB and some media outlets had begun posting draft results on the internet, but until recently, most players didn’t know they had been drafted until their new team called to inform them. “My agents, advisors at the time, had been talking to us that morning. They thought the Twins might still take me anyway. We just didn’t know,” Mauer said. “About 10 minutes after the draft started, [agents Ron Shapiro and Michael Maas] called back and said they hadn’t heard anything. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen,’ they told us. And while we’re talking, Michael all of a sudden says, ‘Hey, it says on the internet that you were taken No. 1!’ And that’s how I found out. Just someone happened to see it online, while I’m standing in my parents’ bedroom.” Mauer pauses at the memory. “It’s a little different today,” he said. He’s absolutely right about that. In eight days, the Twins will exercise the overall No. 1 pick once again, for the third time in their history. The player they select surely will be watching the national TV broadcast, might even be in MLB Network’s Secaucus, N.J., studios to revel in his status. He’ll shake the commissioner’s hand, be interviewed by former ballplayers, and watch highlights of his amateur career. But whoever the Twins choose, he probably won’t go 4-for-4 that day and lead his team into the state quarterfinals. “That made the day perfect. We ended up 10-running them [in a 13-3 win] at old Midway Stadium and got to celebrate again,” Mauer said. “It was a lot of fun.” Baseball still is for Mauer, and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed: Sixteen years later, he’s still in the lineup most days for the team that drafted him. In fact, Mauer is one of the great success stories not only in Minnesota draft history, but of the draft overall. Of the 52 players who have been chosen as the overall top pick, only three, as measured by baseball-reference.com’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR), have had more productive and successful careers than the three-time batting champion, six-time all-star and 2009 Most Valuable Player: Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones and Ken Griffey Jr., the latter a Hall of Famer and the other two possessing Cooperstown-worthy résumes. Yet the “Matt Christopher Sports Classic” quality to Mauer’s career-long tenure with his hometown team has largely obscured a few facts about that draft choice: It almost didn’t happen, the Twins were roasted by critics and scouts when it did, and it probably wouldn’t happen today. “The timing of it all is pretty remarkable,” Radcliff said. “To have a kid this talented, from right down the street, enter the draft in the one year we happen to have the top pick — you could never plan that. You couldn’t imagine it.” A lot of people at the time couldn’t imagine the Twins choosing Mauer, though. In most baseball drafts, there isn’t a clear-cut top pick, and the Twins say there isn’t one this year. There was in 2001, though. Mark Prior was a righthanded pitcher at Southern California, and had dominated collegiate baseball like few before him. He led the Pac-10 in win, strikeouts, ERA and opponent batting average, and amassed a host of national player of the year awards, including USA Baseball’s Golden Spikes. He was mature on and off the mound, “about as much of a sure thing, no-brainer as any pitcher you’ve ever scouted,” Radcliff said. “He had near-perfect mechanics, his fastball and breaking ball were both strikeout pitches, the best in years. People were saying he could be in the big leagues in about five minutes, and he almost was.” Prior was such a certain star, though, he and his father believed he should be paid like an established one. A San Diego native, Prior hired Tony Gwynn’s agent, John Boggs, as his unofficial “advisor” (since amateurs technically were not allowed to employ agents), and Boggs let it be known that Prior wanted a major league contract and a spot on the 40-man roster, not a standard minor league deal that most draftees sign, and he expected it to guarantee him far more than the $7 million that the Marlins had given high school pitcher Josh Beckett two years earlier. “Early on in the process, they let us know that they were looking for $10 million and probably more,” Radcliff said, “and they really didn’t want us to pick Mark.” Undeterred, Twins scouts began compiling information and comparing notes. Ryan sat in on almost every scouting meeting that spring, and he ended nearly every one by going around the room again, reviewing the various opinions about the No. 1. Any new tidbit or daily report was

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discussed and incorporated; Radcliff estimates the Twins analyzed the top candidates several dozen times. They attended nearly every one of Prior’s 18 starts for the Trojans (he went 15-1) and looked in vain for flaws. While in California, most of the Twins’ supervisors and cross-checkers also drove across town to see UCLA’s ace, Josh Karp, who briefly broke into their top-pick consideration. They investigated Dewon Brazelton, a hard-throwing righthander at Middle Tennessee State. They fell in love with Mark Teixeira, the Georgia Tech third baseman who everyone agreed was the draft’s top collegiate hitter. “That’s what you normally do up high, take college hitters. You can project them. They’re pretty close to risk-free,” Radcliff said. “Teixeira looked like the safest bet. He stayed in our top three all spring.” Through it all, there was Mauer, his case growing stronger and stronger as he kept improving. The Twins’ first-look reports dated back three years, and included his summer playing for the U.S. Junior National team after his sophomore season, invaluable exposure to higher quality pitching and competition than was getting in most high school games. Mauer batted over .500 his senior season, and legendarily struck out only once in his four Cretin-Derham Hall seasons. That he was a local kid made for convenience — the Twins scouted Mauer’s football games, too, and Radcliff recalls attending a CDH basketball game — but the Twins insist his evaluations had nothing to do with his address. They glowed because of one unmistakable factor. “The swing. It’s the best swing I’ve ever seen by an amateur. Smooth, technical, balanced — an almost perfect baseball swing. I didn’t see Ted Williams, but I’ve never seen anybody square the ball up every time he swung, like Joe did,” Radcliff said, recalling the reports he filed. “On top of that, he was athletic and a catcher with a double-plus arm, double-plus glove. ARod [received] the highest number I’ve ever put on a high school guy overall, but Joe’s swing graded higher.” The Twins weren’t the only organization salivating over the teenage prodigy, though. Mauer was also the top-rated prep quarterback in the nation, the only athlete ever to win USA Today’s player of the year honors in two sports, and football recruiters swarmed St. Paul to seduce him. Scholarship offers came in by the bunches, but Mauer had a firm criteria that eliminated all but a few: He wanted to play baseball, too. “There were some colleges that said, we really want you but we can’t do the dual thing. Well, that’s not going to happen. Baseball had to be in the equation,” Mauer recalled. He narrowed his choices to the University of Miami, which had just gone 11-1 in football, won the Sugar Bowl and finished ranked No. 2; Florida State, which had just lost the national championship game and Heisman-winning quarterback Chris Weinke, a fellow Cretin-Derham Hall product; and Minnesota, the hometown university eager to keep him in town. His visit to Tallahassee made up his mind: He’d be a Seminole. “To be honest, [coach] Bobby Bowden and [offensive coordinator] Mark Richt were really big in my decision,” he explained. “And I wanted a college experience. Minnesota would have been fun, too — I would have played with [Gophers running backs] Marion Barber and Laurence Maroney — but Florida State and Tallahassee just felt right. I was very impressed. I could see myself enjoying that.” As his baseball games continued to be scouted by all 30 teams, though, it became clear he had a tough choice ahead. He and his family ultimately decided that if he was chosen among the top five picks in the MLB draft, and received an appropriate contract, he would give up football. Bowden understood. “When I was being recruited, Bobby said, ‘I want you to be a Seminole, but I’m going to go out and recruit quarterbacks.’ I said, ‘You can get whoever you want, but if I come down there, I’m going to play.’ He liked that,” Mauer said. When he was drafted by the Twins and chose to turn pro, Bowden wrote him a letter of congratulations. “He was so terrific. He told me he’d hold on to my scholarship, like he did [for] Chris Weinke,” Mauer said. “When we spoke on the phone, he said, ‘Boy, I wish you the best of luck. I’m happy for you. But I hope you can’t hit a curveball.” Turns out, he could. Mauer said he still occasionally wonders where a football career might have led. But he knows he made the right choice, even if he took grief from rabid Seminoles fan Doug Mientkiewicz for years. “I had some really good options. But I always wanted to play baseball and make the big leagues,” Mauer said. “I couldn’t put anything ahead of that.”

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That’s not, however, what he told the Twins. With their draft board narrowed to three — and really, two, once Teixeira broke his right ankle when he caught his cleat during a slide, costing him more than two months — the Twins turned to the only part of the draft more difficult than identifying the best player: Signing him. There were no limits to signing bonuses in those days, beyond what an owner was willing to pay, and the cost of top picks had escalated rapidly in the 1990s. The Yankees stunned the industry just three years earlier by paying Michigan quarterback Drew Henson $17 million to give up football. Most teams at the top of the draft liked to informally agree to a figure before taking a player, a procedure that had become far more difficult as salaries inflated. By now, it had become routine for negotiations to drag on until the final minutes before MLB’s signing deadline three months after the draft, with some players choosing to turn down offers and enroll in college. The Twins knew that danger well. Their only other overall No. 1, righthander Tim Belcher in 1983, had refused to sign what he (and his young attorney, Scott Boras) considered a below-market contract, only the second time in the draft’s history that a team failed to land their player. “We knew the history,” Radcliff said. “It was important that we not get shut out, but that’s true every year.” There were other considerations, too. Twins’ owner Carl Pohlad felt an obligation, he told his employees, to hold the line against rapid salary inflation, that he owed it to the industry not to be part of what he considered an increasing threat to the game. It’s also true that the Twins were busy lobbying the state legislature and local government for a new stadium, and though they denied that it was a consideration, headlines announcing a $10 million contract to an amateur player may have derailed the Twins’ position that they were a frugal, if underfunded, organization. Still, the Twins tried to open negotiations with representatives of both Prior and Mauer, and there was a feeling that the Twins would choose whichever one agreed to a contract. It became apparent rather quickly, though, that it wasn’t going to happen. Ryan’s talks with Prior got off to a bad start when the pitcher’s father, Jerry, was insulted at the notion that the Twins might have other players, and in particular a high school catcher, rated roughly equally to his celebrated son. The elder Prior blew up at Twins officials during one meeting. “He said, ‘What do you mean ‘if’ we’re the best guy? We’re obviously the best guy. There’s no doubt we’re the best. What are you talking about?’ “ Radcliff recalled. “He thought we were absolutely nuts to think someone else was Mark’s equal.” Those phone calls grew increasingly contentious, especially as it became clear that the Twins’ intention was to spend closer to the $3 million Boggs negotiated from Texas for Adrian Gonzalez, the previous year’s No. 1, than Prior’s eight-figure ambitions. Meanwhile, the Twins were having much more pleasant conversations with the Mauers. Ryan and his staff visited the family’s St. Paul home several time, and Joe’s mom, Teresa, even offered homemade cookies. But the answer was pretty much the same: No. “He had the leverage of that Florida State scholarship, and he had a sharp agent who knew how to negotiate,” said Radcliff, now the Twins vice president of player personnel. “They weren’t giving us any discounts.” During the final weekend before the draft, Ryan tried to increase the pressure, but neither side capitulated. The Twins called Brazelton’s agent, and let that news leak, in hopes of gaining leverage. The night before the draft, a phone call with Jerry Prior devolved into an angry shouting match when Prior suggested other teams might pay $20 million for his son. “I think they expected us to drop a big number on them at the last minute, and we weren’t going to do that,” Radcliff said. “Mr. Prior was yelling, “You don’t have enough money to sign us! Don’t take us! If you pick us, you’re going to regret it!' " On the morning of the draft, Ryan, Lepel and area scout Mark Wilson drove over to the Mauer house once again; the teenage target of their mission hadn’t even gotten up yet. But they went away disappointed again. Another series of phone calls to all parties, just minutes before the draft was to begin, also produced nothing. The Twins were going to make a baseball decision, not a financial one, and they left it up to their top scout, Radcliff, to choose the player he preferred. So Radcliff leaned into that speaker phone and said in a firm voice, “The Twins select Joe Mauer, catcher, St. Paul Cretin High.” The reaction was, to put it mildly, mixed. Many Minnesotans expressed pride and excitement, and a school assembly at the high school roared at the news. Mauer held a news conference with Ryan, who brought a Twins jersey with his name and No. 16, his high school number, on the back.

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“I look down and see ‘Twins,’ and I can’t believe it,” Mauer said. But around the country, the Twins were frequently portrayed as fools, too cheap to take the best player and too infatuated with a good local story. Jerry Prior ripped the Twins after his son was chosen No. 2 by the Chicago Cubs, mocking that “whenever I think of Minnesota, I’ll think of Jesse Ventura and Terry Ryan.” Scouts approached Radcliff and other Twins employees at tournaments and said, “Man, I don’t understand that pick. How could you not take a lock?” he said. “I always said, ‘No, this is the guy I really wanted.’ That wasn’t easy when Prior was winning 18 games for the Cubs and our guy was in Class A.” Star Tribune columnist Dan Barreiro wrote that, “Please don’t pretend the Twins took the player they thought to be the best player. … Understand that money is the one and only reason the Twins went the direction they did.” And national columnists were even more harsh. A month later, Ryan and Shapiro agreed to a $5.1 million contract for Mauer, a record for the franchise that stood until Byron Buxton received $6 million in 2012. A few days later, Prior signed a contract with the Cubs that gave him a $4 million signing bonus, plus a $10.2 million, five-year major league contract. It appeared to be a bargain when he reached the majors the following May, and struck out 147 hitters in just 116 innings. A year later, Prior was starring in the NL playoffs. He won twice and appeared to be pitching the Cubs to the World Series in Game 6 of the NLCS before fan Steve Bartman famously got in the way of a catchable eighth-inning foul ball, sparking a Marlins rally. But Prior’s career was derailed by a series of shoulder injuries and other ailments, and though he tried several times to come back, he never pitched a big-league game after 2006. Mauer? “Two days after I signed, I’m standing in Elizabethton, Tenn., thinking about how I gave up a chance at the Orange Bowl for this,” he joked recently of his rookie-ball days. “But I love this game. I’ve never had any regrets.” The Twins certainly don’t either, but it’s interesting to consider how things might have played out today. The player’s union agreed during 2011 collective bargaining to a salary scale for draftees, with a maximum bonus allotted for each pick. The Twins can pay next week’s first pick no more than $7.77 million, for example, and their other first-day picks, Nos. 35 and 37, are capped at $1.9 and $1.8 million. Under that system, with negotiation largely not a consideration, would the Twins still have taken Mauer? Or would Prior have joined a pitching staff that already had Brad Radke and Johan Santana? “I can’t say what would have happened,” Radcliff said. “I know we had [scouts] that were just as adamant about Prior as everyone else. Who knows? All I know is, I picked the guy I wanted. I was at peace with it then, and you have to say it worked out pretty well.” Albert Pujols reaches 600 career home runs with grand slam in 7-2 win over Twins LaVelle E. Neal III | Star Tribune | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – Albert Pujols raises and lowers his arms as if they ride on shock absorbers as he waits for the right pitch. When he gets one he likes, he unfurls a powerful swing that one day will land him in Cooperstown. For now, he will have to settle for the 600 Club — a club he entered in grand style. On Saturday night, Pujols belted a grand slam off former Angels teammate Ervin Santana to become the ninth player to hit 600 home runs and the first to do so since Jim Thome for the Twins against Detroit on Aug. 15, 2011. And Pujols is the first player ever to hit a grand slam for No. 600. It gave the Angels a six-run lead in the fourth inning, and they went on to a 7-2 victory over the Twins. A shaky Santana loaded the bases on a single and two walks in the fourth. Pujols, who had walked and struck out in his first two plate appearances, was behind in the count 1-2 when Santana left a slider in Pujols’ zone, and The Machine cranked on it. The ball sailed down the left field line and about five rows into the stands. Pujols walked to first base as he watched his drive sail away, and who could blame him? It happened to be one of seven grand slams hit in the majors on Saturday, a single-day record. Angels teammates spilled onto the field to congratulate him, and his wife, Deidre, came onto to the field for a kiss and an embrace.

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Meanwhile, the fight was on for the six-figure souvenir. Scott Steffel, 23, of Costa Mesa, Calif., emerged from the scrum with the ball. And the graphic designer at Cal State-Fullerton was put on camera within minutes. Of Pujols’ 600 homers, seven have come against the Twins and three have come at Target Field. Among his milestone home runs is No. 200, hit off current Twins reliever Matt Belisle on Sept. 30, 2005, when Pujols was with St. Louis and Belisle pitched for Cincinnati. Pujols joins other greats who have reached milestones against the Twins. It includes both Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray, who collected their 3,000th hits against the Twins. Mariano Rivera passed Trevor Hoffman to become the all-time saves leader with his 602nd in a game against the Twins. “I want to congratulate Albert on doing what only eight other men have been able to accomplish in the 141-year history of Major League Baseball,” MLB Player’s Association head Tony Clark said. “His on-field accomplishments, as well as his contributions and compassion off it, continue to elicit our respect and admiration as baseball fans. I wish him all the best as he rewrites the record books and continues his Hall of Fame worthy career.” An announced crowd of 40,236 stood when Pujols came to the plate and screamed as the ball sailed into history. On Thursday, Twins manager Paul Molitor hoped that Pujols would reach the milestone in a game in which the Twins won 7-1. Instead, Pujols’ blast Saturday put the Angels ahead 7-1. The Twins actually led 1-0 on a first-inning RBI single by Max Kepler. But they couldn’t lay off Matt Shoemaker’s split-fingered fastball, chasing it as it dove toward the ground. Santana (7-3) wasn’t sharp vs. his original big-league team. Eric Young Jr. and Kole Calhoun hit back-to-back homers as Los Angeles took a 3-1 lead in the third. Ben Revere hit a one-out single in the fourth, followed by a walk to Young. Santana got Andrelton Simmons to pop out but then issued a four-pitch walk to Calhoun, bringing Pujols to the plate and the fans to their feet. Kepler added a homer in the sixth, but that was it for the Twins, who lost for only the second time in their past 11 road games. Major League Baseball is enjoying a power surge Phil Miller | Star Tribune | June 3, 2017

I was struck by the irony when I encountered Brian Dozier in the visitors’ clubhouse in Baltimore on May 24. As he talked to teammates shortly before batting practice, the Twins leadoff hitter wore a T-shirt that read “All Me — PED Free,” while an MLB official, checking in players who had been randomly selected for that day’s routine drug tests, sat perhaps 10 feet away. That tableau neatly sums up the state of baseball in 2017: Home runs have flooded the game today just as thoroughly as they did when Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds were smashing records — but nobody is pointing to steroids as the reason this time. “I don’t go up there trying to hit home runs,” Dozier, who last season set an American League record for most home runs by a second baseman, said that day, “but sometimes your swing gets just right, and they go a long way.” They are going a long way more than ever right now. Major leaguers bashed 1,060 home runs in May, just missing the record for a calendar month, according to Elias Sports Bureau, the 1,069 that were hit in May 2000 during the height of what is commonly known as the steroids era. The Twins, who rank in the bottom third of homer-happy teams, hit 37, only the fourth time in the past 23 years they have hit so many in a single month. Last season’s MLB total of 5,610 homers is the second most ever; again, only in 2000 (5,693 homers) was the game so awash in slugging — and the sport is on pace to smash that record this year. The Twins might not be leading that surge, but they are not immune from the trends, either. Friday’s 11-5 victory over the Angels typified the way the game is being played today: The Twins hit three two-run homers to open a 6-0 lead. They entered Saturday with 241 runs this season, and 95 of them — 39.8 percent — scored after a homer. That virtually matches last year’s 40.3 percent of the offense provided by homers, only the second time since the Killebrew era that Minnesota so depended on home runs.

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Twins manager Paul Molitor sees a generation of hitters taught to swing for the fences, without regard to striking out, as a big factor in the new homer-happy playing style. “We tolerate strikeouts more, and a lot of guys don’t know how to hit with two strikes to shorten their strokes and put the ball in play,” Molitor said. “We’ve kind of created that [type of hitter] with the acceptance we’ve given strikeouts.” A recent Sports Illustrated article speculated that StatCast, MLB’s new data-collection system that has pinpointed the optimum launch angle and exit velocity for home run hitters, as one factor in the power surge. Swinging harder and with a greater uppercut produces more homers, an all-or-nothing approach that does indeed come with a bigger dose of strikeouts as a side effect. Strikeouts now account for more than 21 percent of all plate appearances, an all-time high, and the game has set a strikeout record in each of the past four seasons. Whiffs might not damage a team’s offense as much as once believed, but the lack of balls in play slow the game and provide less crowd-pleasing action. Is this healthy for the game? Molitor is not so sure. “It just wasn’t the way I was taught. We tried to find ways to put it in play regardless of who was pitching and regardless of whether you had power,” the Hall of Famer mused. “It’s different today. I love Mike Trout, but one of the years he won MVP, he struck out almost 190 times [184 in 2014]. So you can be the best player in the game and strike out 190 times as long as you’re doing damage when you put the ball in play.” CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE It might be a coincidence, but offense from designated hitters this season tracks relatively closely with the AL Central standings. Here is the production, or lack of it, teams are getting from the DH spot: Indians: Edwin Encarnacion started slowly, and his slugging remains subpar, but his ability to get on base (sixth in the AL in walks) has made up for it. And Carlos Santana’s once-a-week DH stints have been terrific, with a 1.028 OPS. Royals: Brandon Moss was their most celebrated offseason acquisition, but he’s been a bust as Kansas City’s replacement for Kendrys Morales thus far. Moss has hit nine homers but somehow has only 14 RBI, and his .266 on-base percentage is killing more rallies than he’s starting. Tigers: Victor Martinez is 38, and his power is fading — with only five homers, he’s not likely to approach last year’s 27 — but his ability to draw an occasional walk still makes him valuable in the middle of Detroit’s lineup. His .733 OPS makes him an average DH, at least for one more year. White Sox: The position is an on-base nightmare in Chicago, with nine players combining for a .199 average and .271 on-base percentage. Matt Davidson has five home runs in 19 games as a DH but is hitting .231 with a .265 OBP. Free-agent signee Cody Ashe has been even worse; in 14 starts, he is 6-for-48 with two walks, an offense-killing .192 OBP. STATISTICALLY SPEAKING The Twins have one of baseball’s youngest starting lineups, and the statistics show it. The most hits by players 25 and younger this season, though Thursday ( with at-bats, batting average): 232 Cubs (1,001, .232) 210 Twins (815, .258) 190 Red Sox (659, .288) 177 Padres (767, .231) 171 Rangers (734, .233) • • • The Twins turned their first triple play since 2006 on Thursday, demonstrating how rare the play is. Here are the teams that have recorded three outs on one play most often in the past 20 seasons:

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6 White Sox 5 Phillies, Brewers 4 Rockies 3 Giants, Braves, Rangers, Cardinals, Rays, Indians, Pirates, Yankees Twins' Robbie Grossman shows he can be aggressive, too LaVelle E. Neal III | Star Tribune | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – One area Robbie Grossman wanted to address this season is being more aggressive early in the count. It’s not an easy adjustment, because the Twins switch hitter has established himself as a player who is not afraid to be in 3-2 counts. Still, he knows there are times when the combination of knowing pitchers’ habits as well as recognizing what his reputation is indicates that he should attack early. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m getting to the point where I’m trying to be aggressive when I get a good pitch early in the count and I think it will improve my game.” Grossman was 6-for-34 (.176) last season when he put the first pitch in play. This season, he’s already 10-for-23 (.435) with two home runs. He has been able to adjust while not getting away from what has made him valuable to the Twins. He entered Saturday fourth in the American League with a .415 on-base percentage and 10th in walks with 29. With Kennys Vargas and a struggling Byung Ho Park at Class AAA Rochester, Grossman figures to get most of the at-bats as the designated hitter with occasional stints in the outfield. Grossman is one of the first players in the clubhouse every day. He studies opposing pitchers intently, even keeping notes on some. And he’s trying to eliminate weaknesses. Manager Paul Molitor has noticed, particularly when Grossman has gone after the first pitch. “At first it caught me off-guard a few times, when he would ambush,” Molitor said. “When you get a reputation of a guy in which part of his damage is that he can make you throw a lot of pitches and draw walks, guys have a tendency to try to get strike one.” Castro sits again Catcher Jason Castro, the Twins’ usual starter, was on the bench for a second game in a row Saturday as Chris Gimenez got the start. Castro caught all 15 innings in the loss to Tampa Bay last Sunday and maintained a busy workload during the week. So Molitor decided it was time for Castro to get a break. He spoke to both catchers before the series about his plans. “I think backing him off a couple days and trying to recharge him is a good thing,” Molitor said of Castro. Gimenez had a single and three walks Saturday night. Helped right away With the Twins enjoying a comfortable lead Friday, Molitor had a chance to use both of his new pitchers, Alex Wimmers and Randy Rosario. Wimmers finished up for starter Kyle Gibson in the sixth inning, but with runners on the corners and two out, he hung a changeup that Martin Maldonado drove toward the gap in left-center. Byron Buxton ran it down to end the inning and the Angels’ threat. Wimmers then pitched a 1-2-3 seventh. The lefthanded Rosario made his major league debut in the eighth and pitched a clean inning. That included getting Albert Pujols to ground out to third.

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Rosario gave up three runs in the ninth, including a two-run homer to Danny Espinosa off a hanging slider. But he got through it. His fastball topped out at 94 miles per hour, and he showed off a (mostly) sharp slider. “The guy was in Chattanooga a couple days ago and now he’s facing a Hall of Famer,” Molitor said. “But overall, he got through the last two innings and we were able to refresh our bullpen.” Albert Pujols hits 600th home run as Angels pound Twins Joseph D’Hippolito | Pioneer Press | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM, Calif. — At 8:47 p.m. Pacific time Saturday night, Ervin Santana assured his place in major-league history. Santana conceded Albert Pujols’ 600th home run at that moment, following two more homers earlier in the game, in the Minnesota Twins’ 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels in front of 40,236 at Angel Stadium. The three home runs are the second-most Santana (7-3) allowed this season. The Dominican right-hander also permitted a season-high seven hits, walked three batters, hit one and collected a season-low two strikeouts in five innings — his shortest outing this season. “I can’t really explain it,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “It was not his night. Even those couple of zeros he put up early were a bit of a struggle.” After a 5-0 start, Santana has compiled a 2-3 record while yielding 20 runs, 27 hits and 19 walks in 41 innings. Max Kepler drove in both of the Twins’ runs, added a home run among his two hits and made a diving, one-handed catch to take a hit away from Yunel Escobar in the bottom of the seventh. But those feats dimmed in the light of Pujols’ rendezvous with history. Los Angeles already had a 3-1 lead when Pujols solidified the margin in the bottom of the fourth inning with the 14th grand slam of his career. Ben Revere became the first base runner when he singled to right field with one out. Eric Young Jr. followed with a walk, then one out later, Kole Calhoun walked to load the bases. Before Pujols came to the plate, Molitor walked to the mound and engaged in an animated conversation with Santana as catcher Chris Gimenez and the rest of the infield watched. “You kind of anticipate it every time he comes up,” Molitor said about the possibility of a home run. “He’s been pretty poised, and he’s had some good swings. He just hadn’t connected yet.” Pujols took a fastball for a strike, looked at a slider for a ball, then fouled off another fastball. With a 1-2 count, Santana threw an 87 mph slider. The Angels’ designated hitter launched a high, looping fly ball down the left-field line. He walked down the first-base line with his eyes focused on the trajectory. Then as the ball settled into the stands about five rows behind the low fence near the left-field line, Pujols began his loping trot around the bases as the scoreboard flashed, “600.” “When I was running the bases,” Pujols said, “I was thanking God for giving me the opportunity to be able to do it.” During that at-bat, Pujols found the mechanical and emotional discipline he had been seeking ever since he hit his 599th home run Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves. “If you look at the first two at-bats, I was just too aggressive,” Pujols said. “I was chasing bad pitches. Being in that situation before, sometimes you try to do too much. We are human. I started putting a little pressure on myself after my second at-bat (Friday).” But Pujols received hitting advice from an unlikely source, his wife, through a text on his cell phone in the Angels’ dugout. “Before I hit the home run, she told me, ‘You need to stay back and just look for a good pitch to hit,’ ” Pujols said. “In that at-bat, I was really calm. I didn’t know I was going to hit it out but I knew I was going to have a good at-bat. It was a different feeling than the first two at-bats. I was able to put a good swing on that slider. “It was just the perfect time to check my phone. I’m glad I did. I’m glad I listened to her.”

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Pujols thus became the first player in major-league history to hit a grand slam for his 600th career homer, and the fourth youngest to accomplish the feat, following Alex Rodriguez, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. “I think we can all appreciate Albert chasing history,” Molitor said. “It’s a little tough to applaud when it’s a grand slam that puts you down by six. But I think everyone salutes him on that accomplishment. It’s just incredible. Who knows what he’s got left and how far he’s going to go with some of these categories that he’s climbing in?” Next target: Sammy Sosa, eighth in career homers with 609. Matt Shoemaker (5-3) received the biggest benefit from Pujols’ performance. After a difficult first inning, the right-hander conceded just three hits and two walks in his final 5 1/3 innings. But the Twins exploited Shoemaker’s poor early command to take a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. Robbie Grossman walked with one out, then Miguel Sano looped a single to right field that sent Grossman to third base with two out. Grossman scored when Max Kepler hit a sharp ground ball that Sano had to skip over on its way to right field. But in the bottom of the third, Andrelton Simmons and Calhoun supplied the power that put the Angels ahead, 3-1. After Santana hit Eric Young Jr. to begin the inning, Simmons propelled the right-hander’s next pitch, a 90 mph fastball, into the left-field stands for his sixth home run of the season. Two pitches later, Calhoun followed with his eighth homer this year. Calhoun sent Santana’s 86 mph slider on an 0-1 count into the fourth row of the right-field stands. One inning later, the moment — and the evening — belonged to Pujols. Charley Walters: The way he’s hitting, Joe Mauer might have a .300 season for Twins Charley Walters | Pioneer Press | June 3, 2017

Joe Mauer, who has won three batting titles with the Minnesota Twins, started this season by hitting .225 in April. In May, Mauer hit .346. Included were six doubles and three home runs. In Friday night’s 11-5 defeat of the Angels in Anaheim, Calif., Mauer, who is a .308 lifetime hitter, had four more hits, including his fourth home run. He is now hitting .294. “I’ve had a good run,” Mauer said last week. “It’s kind of funny because I started off the season probably the best that I can remember feeling-wise — I hit the ball, squared it up with nothing much to show for it. Now they’re starting to fall. Now the results are there.” Mauer is 34 now. The last time he batted .300 was in 2013, which was his sixth all-star season, when he hit .324. The way he’s swinging now, it looks like he could be heading to .300 again. Is .300 a goal? “Just trying to have good at-bats and do what the situation calls for is No. 1,” Mauer said. “Obviously, everybody in this (clubhouse) would like to hit .300.” Mauer is in his 14th major league season. He has this season and next on an eight-year, $184 million contract. Mauer’s manager, Paul Molitor, also from St. Paul, was 41 years old during his final season (1998) of a Hall of Fame career. The season before for the Twins, Molitor hit .305 in 135 games at age 40. Does Mauer think about playing after his current contract is up? “Not really, but I know it’s starting to get towards the end there,” he said. “It goes fast. When it comes, I’ll have to make a decision — I know that. But right now, I’m having fun playing.

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“We were saying the other day that I can’t believe this is my 14th year already. It’s gone by quick.” Kyle Gibson (2-4), who beat the Angels on Friday night, might finally be returning to his potential. He has struggled emotionally. “That’s been the big adjustment for me,” said Gibson, 29, who three years ago won 13 games for a club that won just 70 all season. “There was some physical things that I’ve worked on and tried to correct with my delivery and stuff, but mostly it was just mentally and my mentality toward what I was doing. “I know that’s probably a little different for fans, but if you just compare it to their jobs as well … I was taking my job and making it so important that I just couldn’t sustain it. Every pitch, every batter, I was putting so much importance on it that what I was doing was defining my identity on the field and defining what I was thinking about myself. “We’re all going to go through bad stretches, and for me, the first three starts (this season) impacted the next three before I got sent down (to Class AAA Rochester) because of the struggle, and you should never let one, or even three starts, define who you are.” So at Rochester, Gibson had a good chat with Twins psychologist Rick Aberman. “It was about the basic thoughts of what do I ‘need’ and what do I ‘want,’ ” Gibson said. “Almost before every pitch, I was telling myself what I ‘needed’ to do. And Dr. Aberman explained, in all reality, you don’t ‘need’ to do anything on the baseball field. “You ‘want’ to do everything. And when you want to do things, you make the choice to do it. But when you ‘need’ to do things, you have no choice over it — you just do it or you fail. It really made a lot of sense to me.” Sports, for sure, can be mentally taxing, especially in the major leagues. “So now I’m trying to make sure I’m shifting my mentality and understanding that every pitch I throw, I’m throwing because I ‘want’ to, where I want. When you fail at something you want to do, the impact on your identity and on life is not nearly as big as if you fail at something that in your mind you ‘needed’ to do. “When you’re going through tough times, it’s not always just because your slider isn’t good or because your fastball command isn’t good — it could start with something even deeper than that. “I think what I was finding is that my mentality pre-pitch was helping me fail — everything was snowballing because of the importance I was putting on each pitch. And before you know it, you’ll have four bad pitches in a row and you get yourself in a jam. Well, you’re now thinking about the previous four pitches, plus trying to do something down the road, and you just can’t do it.” Gibson was getting plenty of advice. “Everybody the whole time was saying ‘just be you — you’ve had success here, and just be Kyle Gibson,’ ” he said. “Well, my idea of Kyle Gibson was changing because of how my mentality was toward each pitch.” Gibson’s physical stuff on the mound is too good for him not to be a winning pitcher. “That’s what everybody was telling me,” he said. “And I was getting to the point that I knew that, but I don’t know that I was believing it because of where my mentality was. The thought that I was having about myself was being driven by six (mostly ineffective) starts instead of looking at the times that I’ve had extended success and realizing I’ve done this before. I was letting six starts kind of overshadow everything, and that’s the The Twins were among 10 teams scouting Burnsville senior Sam Carlson’s shutout (2-0) of Park of Cottage Grove on Friday night in Dundas. Whether Carlson will be a first-round pick in next week’s major league draft will depend on what scouts watched him on what days he pitched. In other words, it’s a tossup. Carlson has a brother, sophomore pitcher, Max, who also is being scouted by major league teams. Among those attending the celebration of life of former Twins equipment manager Jimmy Wiesner at Mancini’s last week were Tom Kelly, Kent Hrbek, Tim Laudner, Jim Rantz, Tom Brunansky, Jerry Bell, Tony Oliva, Dennis Ryan, Mark McKenzie, Billy Robertson and Dennis Denning.

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Deephaven’s Tim Herron, who won the PGA Tour’s Colonial tournament in 2006, was hitting balls on the practice range at last week’s Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, when he was approached by a fellow who asked him if he’d like to try one of Ben Hogan’s old persimmon wood drivers. “I said sure, fine,” Herron said. “Holy God! Man, do they look small! I’d love to see Bubba (Watson) and these guys try to wail with them. I hit ‘em real low — line drives. The golf ball has changed so much that you can’t create enough spin to get the ball up in the air with his clubs.” The legendary Hogan, who died nearly 20 years ago, won four U.S. Opens and two Masters tournaments using a wood driver and balata balls. Herron, 47, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, is playing on tour exemptions until he tries to qualify for the Champions Tour when he turns 50. He said hitting Hogan’s driver felt “really strange. It was different because it had a steel shaft and the ball came off really low, kind of squirrely off to the right, like a knuckleball. It was probably only flying about 220 (yards). It was funny.” Herron’s regular drives with his new Ping 460cc graphite state-of-art driver fly about 270 yards. “Now, the heads are so big you don’t really think about it,” Herron said. That was Twins manager Paul Molitor, 60, walking 18 holes at tough Hazeltine National, site of last year’s Ryder Cup, during his team’s recent off-day and shooting in the low 80s. The Twins have gone from 66-to-1 odds last month to win the World Series to 40-to-1, according to Bovada-Las Vegas, and 6-to-1 to win the AL Central Division. If the Cleveland Cavaliers can beat Golden State in the NBA Finals, Tyronn Lue would become only the second coach in NBA history to win a championship in his first two seasons. The only other coach is Johnny Kundla with the Minneapolis Lakers (1949-1950). Kundla, who resides in northeast Minneapolis, turns 101 on July 3. Apple Valley junior basketball star Tre Jones is doing well after a bad ankle sprain with his Howard Pulley AAU team in Los Angeles last week. Jones’ current college considerations, in no order of preference: Duke, Arizona, UCLA, Minnesota, Oregon, Baylor and Butler. Going into Saturday’s games, the Twins have the best road record based on percentage (16-5, .762) in the major leagues, even better than Houston’s 19-6, .760. St. Thomas Academy’s new Athletic Hall of Fame members: Tom Cross, Tim McManus, Joe Slater, John Gross, John O’Connell, Dennis Smith, Tim McGough, Matthew Schnobrich and Kip Winden. Former St. Paul Academy and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) hockey star Delaney Middlebrook, who overcame a life threatening heart condition that required surgery at Mayo Clinic her senior year at SPA, has helped her Djurgarden team win the Gold Medal in the Swedish Women’s Hockey Championship and been elected among charter members of the Minneapolis Hockey Hall of Fame that includes Mike Ramsey, Reed Larson, Tom Chorske and Joe Dziedzic. Ex-Twin Denard Span on Friday against Philadelphia had five hits for San Francisco, which hosts the Twins next weekend. Span is hitting .260. Eduardo Nunez, the former Twins all-star infielder traded to the Giants last year for pitcher Adalberto Mejia, is hitting .288 for San Francisco. Former Gophers hockey captain and chairman of Minnesota Board of Regents Dave Metzen will receive the University’s highest honor, the Outstanding Achievement Award, on June 19 at the president’s Eastcliff residence. Big Ten men’s basketball coach of the year Richard Pitino speaks Thursday at a Dunkers club breakfast at the Minneapolis Club. Vikings coach Mike Zimmer speaks at a Dunkers breakfast on June 16 at the Minneapolis Club. Defending 3M Championship winner Joe Durant will speak at the TPC course in Blaine on June 19. Don’t print that Word is Brad Hand, 27, the Chaska High grad who is 1-3 with a 1.69 earned-run average in 27 games for the San Diego Padres, is available for

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the right deal. The left-hander would seem a perfect fit for the pitching-desperate Twins. Don’t be surprised if it’s announced on Friday that Hazeltine National in Chaska will host the 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship — one of five majors on the LPGA Tour with a purse that could approach $4 million in two years. The first-place Twins, 28-23 after Friday night’s victory, say they don’t know whether they will be buyers or sellers by baseball’s trade deadline on July 31. “The way I look at it, we’re just getting into June, and a lot of teams are still trying to figure out where they are,” Twins chief executive officer Derek Falvey said. “I talk to a number of general managers, and I think everyone’s kind of in the same stage — let’s see where we are in late June, early July.” The Twins are still trying to figure out where they are regarding contention. “I think so,” Falvey said. “Each day and each week is another set of data for us for where our team is, what we need, what fits. Things can go in different directions depending on injuries and otherwise, too. We just want to be thoughtful about staying as open-minded as possible.” The Twins have early picks in the second round of next week’s major league draft. Expected to be available is outfielder Stuart Fairchild of Wake Forest. Fairchild, who hit two home runs against Miami in last week’s NCAA playoffs, has the same right-handed, short and quick but powerful swing as that of Paul Molitor, the Hall of Fame Twins manager. It now looks like Vanderbilt right-hander Kyle Wright will be the Twins’ choice with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft on June 12. Wright could be in the major leagues in a year or so if all goes well. Hill-Murray grad Jake Guentzel, the rookie with the Pittsburgh Penguins and son of Gophers top assistant Mike Guentzel, has a decent chance to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the NHL’s playoff MVP. Woodbury neighbors recall seeing Guentzel virtually every day during winters skating outdoors at Colby Lake Park. If the Timberwolves don’t trade down with their No. 7 pick in the June 22 NBA draft, it still looks like they will take 6-11 Jonathan Issac from Florida State or 7-foot Lauri Markkanen from Arizona. But trading down to No. 16 or so, with Chicago, remains a distinct possibility. It’s still looking like Arizona State could be joining the WCHA for men’s hockey. A 4,000-seat on-campus arena is being planned, but it could be at least a couple of years before the Sun Devils begin play in the league. P.J. Fleck’s first Gophers football team will play in the Quick Lane Bowl against North Carolina in Detroit, projects the Street and Smith’s publication, which also forecasts that Northwestern will be the Big Ten’s representation in the Holiday Bowl, which last season hosted Minnesota in its 17-12 victory over Washington State in San Diego. Meanwhile, Rodney Smith of the Gophers is projected as an all-Big Ten second-team running back by Athlonsports.com, which also projects teammate Steven Richardson as a second-team defensive lineman. Minnesota’s Emmit Carpenter is the first-team kicker, teammate Ryan Santoso the second-team punter. The Timberwolves are 100-to-1 odds to win next season’s NBA championship, the same as the Bulls, Nuggets, Pacers, Lakers, Magic and 76ers, according to BetOnline.ag. The Warriors are 1-to-1. Overheard Twins starter Ervin Santana (7-2, 1.75 ERA) on his success: “Everything is working — I’m throwing a lot of strikes, the ball is down, and our offense is good.” Grossman's consistency a plus for Twins Rhett Bollinger | MLB | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM -- Since joining the Twins on a Minor League contract in mid-May of last season, Robbie Grossman has been one of the more

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underrated hitters in baseball. Since his Twins debut on May 20, 2016, the outfielder/designated hitter has batted .280/.394/.449 with 17 homers, 74 runs and 56 RBIs in 140 games, entering Saturday. His .394 on-base percentage is the eighth highest in baseball over that span, and ahead of stars such as Kris Bryant, Buster Posey and Jose Altuve. It's also the highest on-base percentage in Twins history with a minimum of 140 games played, ahead of Hall of Famer Rod Carew's .393 mark in Minnesota. "It's been great to have the opportunity," said Grossman, who was a top prospect with the Pirates before playing parts of three season with the Astros. "I'm just trying to continue to get better every day and I feel like I am." His success isn't an accident, as Grossman is almost always among the first to the ballpark, and is diligent in his preparation techniques, using video of opposing pitchers to his advantage. Before each series, he watches video of every pitcher the opposing club has, takes notes and revisits the videos before each game, looking for trends and tells. "You get out of it as much as you put into it," Grossman said. "We get all the video uploaded onto iPads and I watch it. I have a certain way I go about it, watching it and then going into the cage. It all goes into my approach. A lot of failure has helped me prepare for what I do." It hasn't gone unnoticed by Twins manager Paul Molitor, who notes that Grossman is one of his club's most difficult outs because of his strike zone judgment and patience at the plate. He's walked 29 times this year compared to 25 strikeouts. "He competes in the batter's box as well as anybody on our team," Molitor said. "Last year, he swung better against left-handed pitching but he was adamant in the spring that isn't who he is and that he believes he's just as good on both sides. You know he's going to take a good at-bat kinda like [Joe] Mauer, taking his walks and getting on base. And he's supplied some power, too." As Molitor noted, the switch-hitting Grossman hit .242/.367/.362 against right-handers last year, but has improved to .301/.398/.527 against righties this year. Grossman is also swinging earlier in the count, as he went 6-for-34 against first pitches last year, but is 10-for-23 with two homers on first pitches this season. "I've noticed that," Molitor said. "At first, it kinda caught me off-guard when he'd ambush. He's a guy who does a lot of his damage getting deep into counts and drawing walks so a lot of guys try to get ahead with strike one, so it's something he can do to counter it." Santana happy for former teammate Pujols Rhett Bollinger| MLB | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM -- Having been Albert Pujols' teammate with the Angels in 2012, Twins right-hander Ervin Santana knows all about Pujols' character and the impact he's had on Major League Baseball. So when Santana served up career homer No. 600 to Pujols in the fourth inning of Saturday's 7-2 loss, he was frustrated that it was the third homer he'd allowed in a rare subpar start, but was happy for his former teammate reaching a milestone that only nine players in baseball history have ever reached. Full Game Coverage "I'm not the only one, you know," Santana said with a laugh about giving up the homer to Pujols, who has gone deep against 386 different pitchers. "I'm No. 9 right now on the 600 club. He's very nice and very humble. He always worked hard and you can tell. He's The Machine." Santana, a native of La Romana, Dominican Republic, was also proud that his countryman reached the 600-homer plateau, joining fellow Dominican Sammy Sosa as the only players born outside the United States to reach 600 homers. It was the second time Pujols had taken Santana deep, but the first time since '13. "That's a good thing for our country," Santana said. Twins manager Paul Molitor, a Hall of Famer who reached the 3,000 hit milestone, had said earlier in the week that he hoped Pujols' homer would come with his club having a big lead. Instead, the homer served as a knockout blow, but Molitor was still in awe of Pujols' accomplishment. "I think we can all appreciate that," Molitor said. "It's just tough to applaud when it's a grand slam that put us down six. But give him credit because he got down in the count, but Ervin left a slider he could handle it. I think everyone kind of salutes him on that accomplishment. There's no denying it's incredible and who knows how much he has left in some of these categories."

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Santana's command was off all night -- he also gave up back-to-back homers to Andrelton Simmons and Kole Calhoun in the third -- and left a 1-2 slider up in the zone against Pujols. It wasn't exactly crushed, as Statcast™ projected it at 363 feet, but Pujols got it up in the air and it carried down the left-field line for a grand slam that gave the Angels a six-run lead. Santana surrendered a season-high seven runs on seven hits and three walks over four innings, causing his ERA to rise from 1.75 to 2.44. "I got beat up," Santana said. "They took advantage of the fact I was behind in the count a lot of the time." Kepler homers but Twins lose on historic slam Rhett Bollinger and Kaelen Jones| MLB | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM -- Albert Pujols reached career home run No. 600 in style, becoming the first player to reach the milestone on a grand slam, to help carry the Angels to a 7-2 win over the Twins on Saturday night at Angel Stadium. Pujols, who reached 599 homers Tuesday, lifted a 1-2 slider from Twins right-hander and former teammate Ervin Santana down the left-field line for a grand slam to give the Angels a six-run lead in the fourth and bring the crowd of 40,236 to its feet. It was skied, as the 42-degree launch angle was his second-highest in the Statcast™ era, dating back to 2015. The homer, Pujols' ninth of the year, left the bat at 100.5 mph and traveled a projected 363 feet, which was the 37-year-old's fourth-shortest projected homer since '15. The slugger said he felt relieved to have finally achieved the milestone. "I was trying to get a pitch to hit," Pujols said. "Sometimes, as player, we are human; you try to do too much, but really in that at-bat I was really calm. I didn't know I was going to hit it out, but I knew I was going to have a good at-bat, because it was a different feeling than the first two at-bats that I had, and I was able to put a good swing on that slider." Pujols, a 10-time All-Star and three-time MVP, joined an exclusive list that includes Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), Alex Rodriguez (696), Willie Mays (660), Ken Griffey Jr. (630), Jim Thome (612) and Sammy Sosa (609). Pujols, Aaron and Bonds are the only players with 600 homers and 600 doubles, while Pujols and Sosa -- both from the Dominican Republic -- are the only two who were not born in the United States. "I think we can all appreciate that," said Twins manager Paul Molitor, a Hall of Famer, who reached 3,000 hits. "It's just tough to applaud when it's a grand slam that put us down six. But give him credit because he got down in the count, but Ervin left a slider he could handle it. I think everyone kind of salutes him on that accomplishment. There's no denying it's incredible and who knows how much he has left in some of these categories." Andrelton Simmons and Kole Calhoun hit back-to-back homers in the third to help power the Angels. Santana uncharacteristically struggled, allowing seven runs on seven hits and three walks over four innings against his former team. He fell to 7-3 with a 2.44 ERA. Max Kepler supplied the offense for the Twins, lacing an RBI single in the first and smacking a solo homer in the sixth off right-hander Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker, though, was otherwise solid, surrendering two runs on five hits and three walks over 6 1/3 innings to improve to 5-3 with a 4.12 ERA. MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Pujols makes history: Pujols was 1-for-9 with four strikeouts in the series before coming up to the plate against Santana with the bases loaded. But Santana left an 86.8 mph slider up in the zone, and Pujols didn't miss it. At 37 years, 138 days, he became the fourth-youngest player to reach the milestone, trailing Rodriguez, Ruth and Aaron. It was also his 14th career grand slam and his second with the Angels. Simba roars, Calhoun does, too: Simmons ripped a two-run home run into left field in the third inning, vaulting the Angels ahead, 2-1. Calhoun followed up with a homer into right field, giving the Angels a 3-1 lead. Simmons' homer came on the first pitch after Eric Young Jr. was plunked, while Calhoun's came on an 0-1 slider. "I got beat up," Santana said. "They took advantage of the fact I was behind in the count a lot of the time." QUOTABLE "Before I hit the home run, she told me, 'You need to stay back and just look for a pitch to hit!' … I'm glad that I listened to her." -- Pujols on the advice his wife sent him in a text before the historic at-bat . "I'm not the only one, you know. I'm No. 9 right now on the 600-club." -- Santana on being on the wrong side of history, giving up the homer to Pujols.

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SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS Pujols' homer helped set a Major League record for grand slams in a single day, as his was the sixth of a record seven on the day. MAGNIFICO DEBUTS FOR THE ANGELS Right-hander Damien Magnifico made his club debut during the ninth inning. Magnifico was called up from Triple-A Salt Lake prior to Saturday's contest. He walked two of the three batters he faced prior to being lifted in favor of right-hander Bud Norris. Magnifico was acquired from the Orioles on May 6. WHAT'S NEXT Twins: Right-hander Jose Berrios (3-1, 2.70 ERA) starts for the Twins in the series finale on Sunday at 2:37 p.m. CT. Berrios is coming off his lone shaky start of the year, allowing four runs over five innings against the Astros. Angels: Right-hander Ricky Nolasco (2-5, 5.07 ERA) will make his 12th start of the season for the Halos on Sunday at 12:37 p.m. PT. He allowed a season-high six runs on seven hits and two walks, while striking out just two batters over a season-low 2 2/3 innings against Atlanta in his latest start. The Twins traded Nolasco to Los Angeles in 2015. Twins topped by Angels as Pujols hits 600th career home run AP | June 3, 2017

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Albert Pujols hit a grand slam for his 600th homer, becoming the ninth member of the club during the fourth inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ 7-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night. Pujols reached the milestone in theatrical style, putting a low pitch from Ervin Santana (7-3) into Angel Stadium’s short left-field porch for his 14th grand slam. The Anaheim crowd roared while fireworks soared overhead for the 37-year-old’s ninth homer of the season and his 155th for the Angels. Pujols moved to the West Coast nearly six years ago after 11 spectacular seasons in St. Louis. Andrelton Simmons and Kole Calhoun hit back-to-back homers in the third inning for the Angels. Max Kepler homered for Minnesota. Matt Shoemaker (5-3) pitched five-hit ball into the seventh inning for his fourth victory in his last five starts. Pujols staked the Angels to a 7-1 lead with his ninth homer this season. After going three straight games without a homer since hitting No. 599 on Tuesday, Pujols became the fourth-youngest player to reach the 600-homer club — and the first to join it with a slam. Santana had yielded just one earned run in 29 innings on the road this season before struggling at Angel Stadium, where he was Pujols’ teammate during the 2012 season after the slugger signed as a free agent and before Santana was traded to Kansas City. Santana dropped to 1-3 in his four career starts against the franchise that signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2000 and employed him for 13 years. He still ranks fifth in Angels history with 223 games started and seventh with 96 victories. After Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Kepler’s RBI single, Shoemaker found his groove and largely limited the Minnesota lineup that scored 11 runs on Friday. The Angels went ahead in the third when Simmons delivered a two-run shot to left for his sixth homer and Calhoun added a shot to right for his eighth. Pujols came up next with a chance to give the Angels back-to-back-to-back homers — but he struck out on three pitches. An inning later, Pujols made history. TROUT OUT Mike Trout will get the cast off of his left hand Sunday, and he begins rehabilitation Monday on his injured left thumb. He’s still expected to be out for at least five more weeks, and he says he won’t stop sliding headfirst after injuring himself doing just that in Miami. “I just think I have to have more control when I dive headfirst,” Trout said. “They say (feet-first) doesn’t slow you down, but it feels like it slows you down.”

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TRAINER’S ROOM Angels: OF Cameron Maybin hasn’t swung the bat since going on the disabled list with a bruised side muscle. Manager Mike Scioscia isn’t sure whether Maybin will be ready to return on Friday as previously hoped. … Reliever Cam Bedrosian (groin) had a solid rehab appearance and could be ready to return Tuesday. UP NEXT Twins: Right-handed 22-year-old Jose Berrios (3-1, 2.70 ERA) makes his fifth start of the season in the series finale. Angels: Ricky Nolasco (2-5, 5.07 ERA) faces the Twins for the first time since they traded him and Alex Meyer to Los Angeles at the 2016 trade deadline. Nolasco and Meyer are both in the Angels’ rotation.