Twins’ Victory: Ryan Jeffers Smashes Two Home Runs and Secures RBI Double – Update

MINNEAPOLIS — Well played, Jeffers.

The Twins set aside Saturday evening to celebrate catching excellence by inducting Joe Mauer to the Twins Hall of Fame — and Minnesota’s backstop of the present day caught that fever, as Ryan Jeffers matched a club record for a catcher with 10 total bases on two homers and a double to lead an offensive onslaught with four RBIs in a 12-1 win over the D-backs.

“I knew this is what I had in me and the player I know I can be,” Jeffers said. “It just took a little while to get there. Now, it’s just [staying] consistent. Stay consistent with the feel and with what I’m doing that’s working.”

The fourth-year catcher originally gave the Twins the lead with a two-run homer over the big wall in right-center off Arizona starter Ryne Nelson in the second inning, then added an RBI double down the left-field line in the third before lining a solo blast in the fifth that just cleared the wall into the left-field bleachers.

Michael A. Taylor and Max Kepler also went deep, while Jeffers, Kepler, Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner all posted three-hit games as the Twins had their biggest offensive output since May 14, when they beat the Cubs, 16-3.

Besides Jeffers, only four other catchers in Twins history have tallied 10 total bases in a game: Jason Castro, Mitch Garver (twice), Tim Laudner and Earl Battey.

But only one has accomplished what Jeffers has been on track to do this season at the plate.

Jeffers’ big night brought his slash line to .292/.392/.503, putting him on pace to become the only catcher in Twins history other than Mauer to post an on-base percentage that high in at least 200 plate appearances. No other Twins catcher has ever posted an on-base percentage higher than .377.

Among catchers with at least 190 plate appearances entering Saturday, only Atlanta star Sean Murphy has a higher OPS, at .903, inches ahead of Jeffers at .895.

“As my career goes on, obviously, I want to flip into the Salvador Perez, the J.T. Realmuto, where if I’m not catching, I’m finding my way into the lineup, one way or the other, because you don’t want to keep my bat out of the lineup,” Jeffers said. “That’s kind of where I want to get to.”

Even as Jeffers struggled to a .210/.285/.390 performance across his first three seasons in the Majors, he adamantly insisted that he had what it took to be one of the game’s premier catchers on both offense and defense — but over those years, he could never quite settle on timing or mechanics that made him fully comfortable at the plate.

In a quest to find that, he spent the offseason essentially rebuilding his swing from scratch, swinging over and over and over while sharing videos with hitting coach David Popkins, trying to find something that felt comfortable.

“[Popkins] was actually sending me videos of him going into Spring Training multiple times, just talking about Ryan: ‘I think this is a really good move for him,’” manager Rocco Baldelli remembered. “And it’s worked.”

The biggest difference is a bat tip that he uses at the start of his swing, a timing mechanism that also helps him not get too long in his swing. He originally got rid of the stride with his front leg, trusting his natural power to drive the ball instead of forcing it.

But now, he mixes and matches different timing mechanisms depending on the matchup — and finally, after three years of tinkering, he feels comfortable in the foundations of his swing.

“I’ve kind of got a couple of different tools in the toolbox now, a couple of different swings,” Jeffers said. “I’ve got a toe-tap. I’ve got a no-stride. I’ve got a modified no-stride. It’s kind of just, you build the tool chest of things that you can pull out in the game depending on the situation or what you’re looking for, and fine-tuning those to use them how you want to.”

Saturday night’s performance pushed Jeffers up to a .391/.455/.681 line in 21 games dating back to June 20, and with Byron Buxton’s placement on the IL freeing up at-bats at designated hitter, Baldelli said Jeffers is absolutely forcing his hand into more playing time down the stretch.

“It’s been little tweaks here and there, but we’ve really found something mechanically that works for me,” Jeffers said. “It kind of feels like me, finally.”