Here are the Twins' expectations for Luplow

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What Jordan Luplow remembers of the Twins from his time as a member of the division-rival Guardians is that they hit a metric ton of home runs. Can’t blame him, considering his best season was 2019, the “Bomba Squad” year when the Twins unleashed a historic amount of home run firepower on the league.

So it was rather fitting that as he drove up to Target Field for the first time as a member of the team on Friday, he heard the fireworks and saw the scoreboard celebration for a Max Kepler home run -- because the game was already underway.

Luplow got to the clubhouse, put on his new jersey and just quietly slipped into the dugout.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my career, but that was a new one,” Luplow said. “That was new. I just snuck in the dugout. Half of the guys were like, ‘Who is this guy?’ I cleated up. I was ready to go, waiting on the call, but they took care of business.”

That entrance was also somewhat fitting, because his arrival to the organization didn’t involve much fanfare; instead of an acquisition in a Trade Deadline move, Luplow was a waiver claim from the Blue Jays, brought in to hit against left-handed pitching after spending much of the last two seasons either injured or in the Minors.

With that in mind, he doesn’t necessarily feel that he’s had a chance to show his true strengths so far -- and hopes that he’ll find that in Minnesota after stops in Atlanta and Toronto earlier this year.

“A little bit, yeah,” Luplow said. “Opportunities, sometimes, are few and far between here. Hopefully, get a little more here and win some ballgames.”

Luplow is very aware of the fact that his strength comes against left-handers, and that’s the point to which he attributes his career-best performance in 2019, when he posted a .923 OPS and 15 homers. As he describes it, Cleveland manager Terry Francona knew when to best deploy him to put him in position to succeed -- and the platoon-happy Twins will use him similarly.

Luplow will play all three outfield spots and hit lefties, and the Twins hope that this will be another fruitful under-the-radar acquisition.

“Yeah, it’s been a whirlwind year,” Luplow said. “This is my third team this year. This is just how the game works. Baseball is crazy. Just try to be the same guy every day. Bring that good energy to the table. When you get your shot, do the best you can.”