Twins Stat of the Day: April 2021

MLB.com is keeping track of a Stat of the Day for the Twins this season, highlighting a unique, interesting or fun nugget from each game.

April 29: Twins 9, Royals 1 -- Twice as nice for Kirilloff
Alex Kirilloff, ranked as the Twins' No. 2 prospect by MLB Pipeline, hit the ball plenty hard through his first eight career games without much to show for it. That turned around in Minnesota's series-opening victory over the Royals, when he hit the first two homers of his career -- a three-run shot to left and a solo blast to center. That made him the first Twins player to hit his first two career homers in the same game since Pat Meares accomplished the feat on June 19, 1994 -- three years before Kirilloff was born.

April 28: Twins 10, Indians 2 -- Buxton sets a career high
Byron Buxton finished the game a triple shy of hitting for his first career cycle, but he still notched a career milestone. Batting leadoff, Buxton recorded a career-high five hits -- surpassing his previous high of four, recorded on Aug. 27, 2017, at Toronto. Buxton hit a home run, two doubles and two singles as the Twins snapped a four-game losing streak.

April 27: Indians 7, Twins 4 -- Run, Nellie, run!
To be fair, Nelson Cruz did joke earlier this season that the only tool he hadn't showed off as a Twin was his speed -- but who could have expected a stand-up triple from the 40-year-old slugger? He launched a ball to the right-field wall off Aaron Civale in the first inning, and the ball took enough of a carom that Cruz was able to coast into third for his first triple since June 24, 2018. He's the third-oldest player in Twins history with a triple, behind Dave Winfield (42 years, 276 days) and Paul Molitor (42 years, 22 days).

April 26: Indians 5, Twins 3 (10 innings) -- Kirilloff's first MLB hit ... sort of
Twins outfielder Alex Kirilloff, ranked the No. 2 prospect in the organization, finally snapped an 0-for-15 skid to begin his MLB career with a double to left-center in the fourth inning off Zach Plesac. It will go into the books as his first career hit -- but it wasn't actually his first hit for the Twins. That's because he singled in the Twins' 3-1 loss to the Astros in Game 2 of the 2020 American League Wild Card Series, but postseason hits don't count toward a career total. Kirilloff is the only player in MLB history with a postseason hit before a regular-season hit.

April 25: Pirates 6, Twins 2 -- Cruz moves up home run list
Not much went right for the Twins' offense in a loss to Pittsburgh, but they did get another big fly from Nelson Cruz, who moved into a tie for the MLB home run lead with an eighth-inning shot that traveled a Statcast-projected 411 feet to left-center. The blast was the 424th of his career, moving him into a tie with Edwin Encarnación for 52nd on the all-time list. Next up is Billy Williams, at 426.

April 24: Pirates 6, Twins 2 -- Pineda's rare loss
Michael Pineda doesn't give up lopsided numbers very often, and it had been a long time since the big right-hander was on the losing end of a decision. Before he allowed five runs -- four earned -- in a loss to Pittsburgh, Pineda's last loss had been on July 16, 2019, when he lost to the Mets. He hadn't allowed more than three earned runs in an outing since Aug. 20, 2019, against the White Sox.

April 23: Twins 2, Pirates 0 -- Astudillo climbs the ladder
At this point, manager Rocco Baldelli says he finds himself wondering, "How?" when it comes to what Willians Astudillo gets up to on the field. This time, it was when Astudillo homered on a pitch that was 4.24 feet off the ground in the Twins' 2-0 win over the Pirates, the highest hit out of the park by any hitter this season and the highest hit for a homer by any Twins player since at least 2010.

April 21: A's 13, Twins 12 (10 innings) -- Cruz-ing altitude
A day after getting hit in the right heel with a slider, Nelson Cruz crushed two home runs against Oakland. His first of the day was a two-run homer that had an exit velocity of 110.1 mph. It was the 63rd homer of his career that registered an exit velocity over 110 mph, the second-most in MLB.

April 20: A's 7, Twins 0 (G1), A's 2, Twins 0 (G2) -- Beane ball
Long before he was doing "Moneyball" things in baseball operations for the A's, Billy Beane's short playing career actually took him through two seasons with the Twins. And in fact, the last time the Twins were swept in a doubleheader in Oakland was Aug. 10, 1990, when Minnesota lost a pair, 6-2 and 6-5, with Beane appearing in both games as a pinch-hitter.

April 16: Angels 10, Twins 3 -- Astudillo slows it way down
With the Twins down by seven runs in the eighth inning of Friday's loss to the Angels, manager Rocco Baldelli couldn't get in the way of Willians Astudillo's desire to take the mound for the second time in his career. His first pitch to Kurt Suzuki clocked in at 51.4 mph, and two pitches later, he lowered that even further with a 46 mph strike on the radar gun. Two of Astudillo's pitches almost certainly appeared even slower, but they were, in fact, too slow to be tracked by Statcast. What else can you expect from a man nicknamed "La Tortuga"?

April 15: Twins 4, Red Sox 3 -- Arraez shines on both sides
Luis Arraez was the spark plug the Twins needed to bust their five-game skid. The 24-year-old played three positions and collected four hits, becoming only the second player to do so in club history, joining Terry Jorgensen, who played shortstop, third base and first base on Aug. 17, 1993. He made a diving catch playing out of position in left field, the second of his hits drove in a pair, and the fourth single made him the winning run on Max Kepler's walk-off single.

April 14: G1, Red Sox 3, Twins 2; G2, Red Sox 7, Twins 1 -- Thielbar's strikeouts pile up
Caleb Thielbar has spoken of his increased confidence in his slider this season, and the results are showing. Though the left-hander allowed his first home run since rejoining the Twins on Wednesday, he also struck out five batters in 2 1/3 innings, including two on the slider. That means he has fanned 14 of the 26 batters (54 percent) that he has faced in four appearances. He had 22 strikeouts in 17 appearances in 2020.

April 13: Red Sox 4, Twins 2 -- Astudillo's sliding adventure
Turns out, it's not always bad to slide into first base. Everybody's favorite Tortuga, Willians Astudillo, attacked the highlight reels (as he does) by beating out a ground ball to short despite achieving a sprint speed of only 24.2 feet per second on his way to first. He did that with a crafty slide into first base that helped him avoid both a high throw from Xander Bogaerts and a leaping Bobby Dalbec -- and he knew it, too.

April 11: Mariners 8, Twins 6 -- Buxton red-hot with the bat
Earlier in the series, Byron Buxton became the first hitter in Twins history with an extra-base hit in each of his first six games. He continued his attack on the club record books with a double and homer as part of a three-hit game, joining Cristian Guzman as the only players in Twins/Senators franchise history with nine extra-base hits through the team's first nine games of the season.

April 10: Mariners 4, Twins 3 (10 innings) -- Pineda's consistency is key
How's this from a No. 3 starter? Following Michael Pineda's six-inning start against Seattle in which he allowed two runs and four hits, the big right-hander has yielded three or fewer earned runs in 10 straight starts -- and 25 of his last 27, dating to May 5, 2019. He also completed five innings in all but two starts during that span.

April 8: Twins 10, Mariners 2 -- Buxton is so extra
Byron Buxton is on some kind of tear to start the 2021 season. He doubled, homered and singled in the Twins' blowout win over Seattle, making him the first player in Twins history with extra-base hits in each of his first six games of a season. In fact, his first seven hits of the year went for extra bases -- four homers and three doubles -- before he finally knocked a sixth-inning single.

April 7: Twins 3, Tigers 2 -- Don't run on Minnesota's outfield
Kenta Maeda wasn't sharp in the sixth inning, but he was bailed out by outfield assists from Jake Cave and Kyle Garlick, who each threw out a runner at home in the frame. Cave made a diving attempt at Miguel Cabrera's line drive, but he recovered quickly for a perfect relay to the plate from cutoff man Andrelton Simmons to throw out Willi Castro. Garlick later threw home to get Cabrera on an attempted tag-up from third base. It was the Twins' first game with two outfield assists at home in one inning since April 10, 2014, when both Darin Mastroianni and Aaron Hicks showed off their arms.

April 6: Tigers 4, Twins 3 (10 innings) -- Buxton continues to rake
On Opening Day, Byron Buxton crushed the longest homer of his career. He followed that up on Tuesday with the hardest-hit ball of his career. In his first plate appearance since returning from illness, Buxton crushed a game-tying homer with an exit velocity of 114.1 mph, which surpassed a 113.6 mph double from July 5, 2019. It traveled a Statcast-projected 451 feet, five feet shy of that career-long jack from Opening Day.

April 5: Twins 15, Tigers 6 -- Cruz packs punch in Detroit
Nelson Cruz's two homers on Monday were hit 114.6 mph and 116.6 mph. Cruz, Giancarlo Stanton (Oct. 6, 2020) and Matt Davidson (March 29, 2018) are the only players with two 114+ mph homers in a game since Statcast began tracking in 2015. Cruz's fifth-inning long ball was the hardest hit by a Minnesota player in the Statcast era, breaking Kennys Vargas' record 116 mph homer from June 10, 2017.

April 4: Twins 8, Brewers 2 -- Maeda, Berríos and Pineda handle business
Though the Twins' staff allowed five unearned runs on Opening Day and another on Sunday, they only yielded two earned runs to Milwaukee during the three-game series. The last time a Twins staff held an opponent to two or fewer earned runs in the first three games of a season was 2003, when Brad Radke, Joe Mays and Kyle Lohse pitched the Twins to a sweep of Detroit.

April 3: Twins 2, Brewers 0 -- Berríos, Burnes take dueling no-hitters through six
Through six innings Saturday, the Brewers' Corbin Burnes and the Twins' José Berríos each had at least 11 strikeouts and no hits allowed. That's the first time in modern MLB history (since 1900) opposing starters achieved that feat in the same game.

April 1: Brewers 6, Twins 5 (10 innings) -- Buxton hits career-long 456-foot homer
Miscues on defense cost the Twins an Opening Day win in Milwaukee, but before things went awry, Buxton nearly powered the club to a win with a no-doubt blast off the center-field scoreboard. There was no need for either left fielder Christian Yelich or center fielder Lorenzo Cain to give chase once the ball left Buxton's bat; the 111.4 mph exit velocity and sharp crack left little doubt, and the Statcast-projected distance of 456 feet marked the longest of Buxton's career, passing a 454-foot shot in Cleveland in 2019. It seems like all of that weightlifting (and extra muscle that was gained accordingly) during the offseason paid off.