Twins Daily Minnesota Twins Hitter of the Month - June 2021

[Matthew Lenz]

At Twins Daily, we decided we needed to start finding some positives from this season by naming the Pitcher and Hitter of the month. Taylor Rogers and Mitch Garver took home the inaugural awards for the month of May. Now it’s time to see who takes the cake in June

As has been the case all year, aside from hitting home runs, the Twins were a middling offense in the month of June and struggled with runners in scoring position. Of course, even in the worst offenses we can find some bright spots and here is our Twins Hitter of the Month.

Honorable Mention #3: Ryan Jeffers

As has been the case this season, the Twins lost Mitch Garver to a very unfortunate injury right as he had found his groove in the month of May. Fortunately, Ryan Jeffers was recalled from AAA and bounced back nicely after posting a .392 OPS in 37 plate appearances back in April. As Ted points out, he was plenty effective in June.

He ended being stuck on those five home runs at the end of the month and finished with an OPS of .802 but that was plenty good enough to earn an honorable mention. Throw in passable defense at the most important position on the field and he’s carved out a semi-regular role even when Garver returns

Honorable Mention #2: Jorge Polanco

Polanco was runner-up in May and continued tearing the cover off the ball in June, which is great news for a guy who is under contract for the next four years.

Specifically in the month of June, Polanco had 10 extra-base hits, including four homeruns, and had an impressive strikeout rate of just 9.7%. More encouraging from a health perspective is that he added three stolen bases on five attempts, which would indicate that his ankle is healthy enough to be active on the basepaths. At one point, it had looked like Planco may lose his role due to his performance as well as the emergence of Luis Arraez and prospects like Royce Lewis making their way through the system, but he’s indisputably established himself as an everyday player.

Honorable Mention #1: Josh Donaldson

He hasn’t been in the news much this month, so I thought it would be worthwhile mentioning him here. After opening a league-wide can of worms and then another, smaller can of worms in Chicago, Chris Schad of Bring Me The News has a point...

 

 

In all, he posted a .992 OPS in the month of June and a wRC+ of 161. To this point, his tenure as a Twins has been more frustrating than anything else but he really was his old self in the month of June. It will be interesting to see how Rocco handles Josh as the season goes on, assuming he isn’t traded with two years left on his deal. Obviously, he needs to be in the lineup as often as possible but at 35 on a floundering team you also want to keep him healthy for 2022 and 2023. Perhaps, if the Twins deal Nelson Cruz and Jose Miranda keeps crushing, he will find himself DH-ing more and more.

Hitter of the Month: Nelson Cruz

Honestly, I don’t have much else to add here...Nick pretty much covered it. His final line in June was eight bombs while slashing .380/.457/.759. Although he did leave out one little tidbit…

That’s right, at the beginning of the month Cruz stole his first base since 2018 but it was his 77th swipe of his career...who would have guessed that?!? Nelson has been invaluable as a member of the Twins, but in reality we’re probably only a few weeks away from him being a member of a different American League club. He inarguably was the Twins best hitter of the month in June and I think that’s fitting for what might be his last full month in a Twins uniform.

Cheers, Nelly.

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[mikelink45]

Nelson Cruz has this award - every month.  We can name it for him.  But I really like Larnach as next in line. 

[Major League Ready]

5 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Nelson Cruz has this award - every month.  We can name it for him.  But I really like Larnach as next in line. 

Larnach was 8th on the team in wRC+ at 96.  The league has already discovered his weakness and he will need to adjust.

[mikelink45]

I went to the MLB hitting leaders on mlb.com today.  I only looked at the top 25 - OPS, Slg, AV, OBP, HR  -  Cruz is on every list.  No other Twin is.  That is sad.