Twins bond over new 'Wheel of Fortune' victory celebration

This story was excerpted from Do-Hyoung Park’s Twins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

MINNEAPOLIS -- It seems that we’ve gone from the Twins' clubhouse’s cured meat story arc to the game show adaptation story arc.

What exactly does that mean?

Well, on this homestand, a mysterious structure covered in an off-white cloth materialized in the empty locker between Royce Lewis and Pablo López -- and it turns out that contraption is a “Wheel of Fortune” for the team.

It’s not a tribute to Pat Sajak, who just retired as the longtime host of the game show. It’s instead the Twins’ newest clubhouse victory and bonding celebration, courtesy of López.

“How do you know that?” said a surprised López when asked about it. “Ah, well.”

How it works is that after each victory, the Twins determine a Position Player of the Game and a Pitcher of the Game. For the first victory, a 5-0 win over the Rockies on Monday, team leaders López and Carlos Correa made the selections: Christian Vázquez on the position player side and Chris Paddack on the pitching side.

And then…

“Those two players go into a rock-paper-scissors match to find the ultimate Player of the Game, who gets to spin the wheel and win a prize,” López said.

Paddack beat Vázquez that day and got to spin the wheel. He became the proud owner of an eye massager.

What exactly is an eye massager? Paddack had no idea, either.

“That's what I said,” Paddack said. “But I went home that night and tried it, and it was unbelievable. It's on your temples and it has, like, music you can play. Like, meditation and relaxation. It was, like, a little bit of vibration. I thought the same thing, but the guys swore by it.”

Then, following the Twins’ wild 17-9 victory over the Rockies in Wednesday’s series finale, Paddack and Vázquez got to choose their successors. They selected López, who allowed two runs on five hits in five innings, and Correa -- whom Vázquez referred to as “Ichiro” following the first five-hit game of Correa’s career, all of which were singles.

López won the battle of rock-paper-scissors, which gave him the chance to spin the wheel.

“He's put together some really cool prizes,” Paddack said. “There's some fun ones in there, too, that we probably shouldn't say.”

And that’s the story of how López walked out the door on Wednesday as the owner of a new portable bonfire.

Being in the clubhouse every day, I can attest to how this group of Twins players genuinely seems to enjoy each other’s company and the camaraderie that they all share. They’re just trying to have some fun and bond even further over the course of a long 162-game season.

“I think it just brings us together a little bit, closer as a group,” Paddack said. “Before the media [enters the clubhouse], no coaches, just the boys hanging out.”

So, if you ever catch a Twins player leaving the ballpark after a victory with a seemingly random item in tow, this could be why.