Kirilloff’s HR recipe? Timing ... and Trevor Plouffe

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Trevor Plouffe is many things: He’s a talented podcaster and broadcaster, a great representative for Twins baseball through the years and just a generally good, fun dude to be around.

He’s also, evidently, Alex Kirilloff's personal good-luck charm.

Last July 16 in Oakland, Plouffe happened to be chatting with Kirilloff in the clubhouse when he noticed it was 11:11, wished for Kirilloff to hit a homer -- then was dumbfounded and hyped up when Kirilloff actually did go deep and gestured towards Plouffe during his home-run trot.

On Wednesday in Chicago, Plouffe again happened to be in the Twins’ clubhouse before a day game, and, well ...

“Today, I was just standing in the clubhouse, right next to [Kirilloff], and I looked at my phone and I said, ‘Alex, you won’t believe it. It’s 11:11 again, and you know what I’m going to use my wish on,’” Plouffe shared on the broadcast.

And wouldn’t you know it, Kirilloff went and fulfilled Plouffe’s wish again.

With the Twins needing a jolt in the fifth inning against White Sox starter Chris Flexen, Kirilloff swatted at a high fastball and muscled it over the left-field fence for his first homer since April 9 -- and in the broadcast booths on level three behind home plate, the three-man television team of Cory Provus, LaTroy Hawkins and Plouffe was going bonkers.

“He’d better look up here again,” Plouffe said on the broadcast as Kirilloff rounded second. “Let’s go, Alex. Run it back!”

What sort of home run hitter would Kirilloff be if he didn’t properly acknowledge the wish? As he rounded third, he looked up and scanned the structure behind home plate to find Plouffe -- and pointed up to the ecstatic Plouffe again.

“Rounding the bases, I thought about it, rounding second,” Kirilloff said with a grin. “I didn’t know where he was, so I looked up, found him and pointed.”

(Plouffe hadn’t been all that hard to find. He’d jumped up out of his chair and was standing with his arms spread wide in the air in triumph.)

“Plouffey and Kirilloff combine yet again!” Provus roared into his microphone.

“I don’t know what it is, but 11:11, me and Alex Kirilloff, getting it done!” Plouffe roared in triumph. “My heart’s pounding right now. You should feel it. I’m so excited. I love my guy AK.”

Kirilloff acknowledged that he and Plouffe “had a good thing going,” but probably felt it wasn’t best to force a wished homer every day. These things have to happen naturally, of course. The coincidence of happening to be next to each other at that exact time during a game two years in a row is part of what made this so fun for both of them.

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to put things out there into the world,” Plouffe said. “Sometimes, you just say something to a really good hitter and he just makes you look smart.”

For those curious, Plouffe will be back on the call during the Twins’ three-city road trip through Houston, New York and Pittsburgh at the start of June.

Unless Kirilloff decides to put him on retainer to bring him back sooner.