MILWAUKEE — Ryan Jeffers spent postgame Sunday lamenting a hitless start to the season, one full of 40 mph exit velocities despite feeling good at the plate. He mentioned it to multiple teammates and coaches, finishing each conversation with a pithy comment about how much he loved baseball’s trials and tribulations.
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After taking a game off to work on his swing, Jeffers picked the right time to deliver his first hit of the season. And then his second.
Jeffers delivered twice in the late innings Wednesday, launching a go-ahead, three-run homer with two outs in the seventh inning and singling in a run with two outs in the ninth inning as the Minnesota Twins won 7-3 against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Jeffers’ homer was his team’s first round-tripper since the first inning of the season (Royce Lewis) and highlighted a five-run breakout for a Twins offense that was beginning to get desperate for production.
Moments before Jeffers’ heroics, Byron Buxton snapped a team 0-for-18 stretch with runners in scoring position that dated back to Saturday with an RBI double to drive in Alex Kirilloff, who’d doubled to produce the team’s first extra-base hit since Sunday. Kirilloff went 4-for-4 with a walk and scored two runs.
“It’s a big win,” Jeffers said. “I know it’s Game 5. I feel like we needed that win going home, not to lose three straight, split the series here and to kind of get the offense clicking. We hadn’t really been stringing stuff together.”
Despite putting together good plate appearances early, the offense appeared in line for another lethargic performance. The Twins ran up the pitch count of Milwaukee starter Joe Ross with walks and lengthy plate appearances but couldn’t deliver in run-scoring chances.
They stranded two runners in the second and fifth innings, left them loaded in the fourth and didn’t do anything when Kirilloff reached with one out in the first and third innings.
The Twins managed a run in the fifth on Carlos Santana’s RBI fielder’s choice, but that was it.
Things got so desperate that Manny Margot — who’d been brought on to pinch hit for Edouard Julien with the bases loaded in the fourth — freelanced a bunt base-hit attempt to get something going.
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Originally ruled safe at first on the play, the call was overturned in New York and Margot was out.
But at long last, they broke through in the seventh inning against reliever Joel Payamps.
Trailing 3-1, Kirilloff hit a leadoff double to right field, the team’s first extra-base hit since Matt Wallner doubled in the seventh inning Sunday. Buxton immediately followed with his run-scoring double. One out later, Carlos Correa dumped a game-tying single to left and Santana followed with a single.
That brought up Jeffers, who was 0-for-13 on the season. Jeffers got ahead 2-0 in the count, fouled off four straight Bryse Wilson pitches and ripped a 94 mph fastball for a three-run homer.
“We don’t know when those things are coming,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’ve had good at-bats, we’ve had some really nice at-bats. Not all of them obviously, but we’ve had some nice at-bats with people on base and how many times are you going to line out? I’m not saying we’ve had 10 of them, but I’m saying we’ve had a few of them. A good handful of them. You can’t keep doing that. At some point, some of them are going to go over the fence, some of them are going to find gaps and you’re going to clump a few of them up.”
Jeffers had a sense he’d start producing better results after working on his swing Tuesday. The catcher credited hitting coach David Popkins for identifying a tiny mechanical flaw via a video review Monday. They worked on the change Tuesday and Jeffers felt great as he prepared Wednesday.
Though his day began with another nubber, Jeffers liked how he felt his final three at-bats, including a line-drive out to center in the trip preceding his homer.
Jeffers provided further proof of his turnaround in the ninth inning with the Twins ahead by three.
After Correa, who went 1-for-3, drew the second of two walks to lead off the ninth and advanced on a groundout, Jeffers singled him in with two outs to make it a four-run lead.
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“It was pretty quickly I was able to say, ‘There it is,'” Jeffers said. “Mechanically, it was something so small. That’s why I felt so good in Kansas City because mechanically I was really close. It was a tiny little tweak. I was dragging a little bit. (The line-drive out) was the moment I knew, ‘We’re back, we’re good.'”
(Photo of Willi Castro congratulating Ryan Jeffers after Jeffers’ three-run homer in the seventh inning: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)