Twins manager Rocco Baldelli made and remade his lineup card more than once Saturday before his team’s 11-1 victory over the Cubs at Target Field.
Whatever he did, it worked.
Baldelli batted power hitter Joey Gallo leadoff for the first time in his nine-year career and moved recently recalled Alex Kirilloff second in the order, just behind Gallo.
The result: the Twins hit five booming home runs on a rain-delayed, breezy afternoon. Gallo, Jorge Polanco and Carlos Correa each belted one, while Kirilloff homered twice and doubled one week after he was recalled from Class AAA St. Paul.
And they did it with slumping designated hitter Byron Buxton on a day off.
“A few, a few,” Baldelli said when asked how many lineup cards he filled. “Sometimes you just look up and you go, `We’re going to grab Joey Gallo and stick him at the top of the lineup.’ “
Sometimes? Well, like never, until Saturday.
Baldelli said bench coach Jayce Tingler encouraged the idea concerning a player who had been 3-for-26 at the plate in May, with 11 strikeouts and no home runs.
“He said, knowing Joey, it’ll scramble him right into a perfect spot where he needs to be so he can go out there and hit,” Baldelli said.
Gallo opened the game with a flyout, but Kirilloff followed by driving a 1-0 pitch from Chicago righthander Hayden Wesneski to the opposite field, 382 feet into the left-center seats.
In the third inning, Kirilloff waited in the on-deck circle watching when Gallo hit a towering three-run homer well into right field’s upper deck, a place where few balls have visited since Target Field opened in 2010.
Gallo tied Buxton for the team lead with his eighth homer this season. This blast went far enough apparently that Major League Baseball’s StatCast system wasn’t able to provide a distance.
“That was probably one of the cooler home runs I’ve seen in person,” Kirilloff said. “Watching that from the on-deck circle was special and the way it broke open the game, too.”
Gallo’s blast brought home Willi Castro and Ryan Jeffers and made it 4-0, if only for mere moments. Three pitches later, Kirilloff made it a five-run lead by driving an 0-2 pitch straightaway over the center-field wall.
Baldelli said the two home runs, along with a ground-rule double in the fifth inning, did the speaking in Kirilloff’s road back from wrist surgery that ended last season early and started this one late.
“The swings tell you every everything you need to know,” Baldelli said. “He’s the kind of guy who does use the whole field. He does get on top of pitches that some other hitters in our game struggle with. He can get to a lot of different places. He does have that strength, but it’s not a brute-strength kind of thing. He’s a good-sized guy, and he’s got a real nice swing.”
Following Kirilloff’s double, Polanco made it 7-0 with a two-run homer in a 10-pitch at-bat he ended with a 409-foot shot into the right-field plaza. Correa added a solo homer himself, his sixth this season, in the seventh inning.
All of which was more than enough for Joe Ryan to improve to 6-1 on the season and 21-10 in his young Twins career. The righthander pitched six scoreless innings, giving up four hits and walking one while striking out 10, the third time this season he has reached double digits.
The Twins’ newest tradition greeted all five homer hitters when they reached the dugout. The donning of a fishing vest pitcher Pablo López acquired as a nod to the outdoor shows that play on clubhouse televisions before games.
Kirilloff wore it twice — and on Minnesota’s fishing opener, no less.
“It fit good,” Kirilloff said. “Hopefully, I’ll get a chance or two to put that on again.”