Sports

/

ArcaMax

Twins' Matt Wallner finding his groove with St. Paul Saints

Bobby Nightengale, Star Tribune on

Published in Baseball

A turning point, Wallner said, was a series in Rochester, N.Y., in the last week of May. Statistically, it looks obvious. He hit four homers and three doubles in seven games. But it was the first time all year he stepped into the batter's box with confidence.

"I feel like I was stressing to get one hit a day," said Wallner, who was up to 18 home runs through 56 games with the Saints. "That's not the player I am. I can go out there and get plenty of hits. It just seemed hard to get a hit every day. It was a struggle. Now, I'm like, OK, get a hit every at-bat. You're not going to, but I feel like I can."

There were times in the first two months of the season where he tried to fool himself into thinking his swing was in a good place. There were a few good games mixed in there, but Wallner says, "It was bad — it was still bad."

"Even when I felt good in the beginning, it wasn't my swing," he said. "I was just having to hit everything the other way. Now I feel good. Now I feel like I can hit to all fields."

There are areas the Twins want to continue to see improvements. Despite his red-hot June, Wallner has struck out in 32% of his plate appearances. The Twins recalled Austin Martin earlier this month when Alex Kirilloff was placed on the 10-day injured list, a move that left the club a little light on left-handed bats.

 

After a long search, though, Wallner finally feels like himself again.

"I've always started slow, but this [slump] felt especially long," Wallner said. "This is probably as long as it gets and hopefully as long as it will ever get."

____


©2024 StarTribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus