Locked-in Gallo powers sweep with pair of moonshots

KANSAS CITY -- The Twins have been hopeful for a Joey Gallo renaissance. They might have just witnessed Day 1.

When Gallo is at his best, pitchers have to contend with the idea that the hulking slugger might crush any given pitch 400-plus feet to hitherto-unseen reaches of the ballpark -- just like he did on Sunday. Gallo hammered a pair of homers and narrowly missed another as his three hits and four RBIs led the Twins’ offense in a 7-4 victory that secured a season-opening sweep over the Royals.

Minnesota opened the season with three straight wins for the first time since 2017, when they started with a four-game winning streak that also included a season-opening sweep of Kansas City.

Gallo was at the forefront of the charge -- on both sides of the ball.

“These are the things that Joey Gallo can do,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He can go up there, get hot, hit the ball, drive the ball … like very few people in the world. There’s not too many people that do what he does. Many have mentioned [that] when he starts to feel it, when he starts to settle in, when he starts to get comfortable, it’s a scary thing sometimes.”

Scary and majestic.

Gallo narrowly missed a homer in the fourth inning, when he mashed a 107.4 mph double off the wall in right-center for his first hit as a Twin. He next strode to the plate in the sixth, and when left-handed reliever Amir Garrett hung a two-strike slider, Gallo showed off his trademark power for the first time this season with a 431-foot moonshot over the home bullpen in right field.

At the time, that was an important insurance run to push the Twins’ lead to 3-1 on the back of six strong innings from starter Joe Ryan -- but it became a moot point when Gallo crushed a three-run blast in the seventh, this time 415 feet on a fastball from right-hander Dylan Coleman.

“[Even] just the first at-bat, I felt good,” Gallo said. “I hit a ball hard, ground ball right at the [second baseman], didn't get the job done. I felt good. I started to feel, 'OK, I'm feeling normal again.' That's just how the game of baseball is. You're going to feel good some days. You're going to feel bad. You've just got to ride it out.”

Perhaps Gallo heard Ryan messing with him during batting practice the other day, when the right-hander ribbed the slugger about Nick Gordon hitting a ball farther than him.

Probably not, because Gallo is usually locked into his work, as he was throughout the offseason and Spring Training, when he worked with hitting coach David Popkins to quiet the head movement in his swing and widen his base to improve his ability to reach and damage pitches.

Gallo was also locked in when he spent more than half an hour with the Twins’ hitting coaches in the cage following Saturday’s victory, continuing to put in the work to leave behind the .160 average and .637 OPS he had in a challenging 2022 with the Yankees and Dodgers and get closer to the version that had an .809 OPS in ‘21 and a .987 OPS in ‘19 during his peak with the Rangers.

It immediately paid off with his first big afternoon as a Twin, as he followed an 0-for-7 start by reaching base four times in a game for the first time since July 10, 2021.

“They're just kind of reminding me, 'Hey, we don't care if you strike out. Just keep going up there with the intent to do damage,’” Gallo said. “Because good things can happen on a day like today. Just kind of that emphasis of, ‘Get your swing off, get your ‘A’ swing off, and have intent.’”

Even when Gallo isn’t hitting baseballs into the stratosphere, the Twins feel he brings plenty of value through his defense, both in the outfield and at first base. His athletic play in the 5th inning of Thursday’s opener might have saved the game, when he helped Pablo López escape a bases-loaded jam by scooping a grounder before it went foul, avoiding the runner and making a perfect throw home to start a 3-2-4 double play.

But Minnesota was hoping to access his offensive upside -- and that’s when the fun begins.

“When he has a fairly direct path and he’s seeing the ball [well], it can get fun for us,” Baldelli said. “We got a little taste of it today."