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In just his last four games, Park has launched mammoth home runs to all fields. His epic blast to center off Joe Smith on Saturday was pegged by Home Run Tracker as the longest in the stadium's history. Two days later he became one of the few right-handed batters to ever clear the heightened right field fence with an oppo shot when he took Chase Anderson deep. And on Tuesday, Park got hold of a hanger and deposited it in the second deck in left.
He leads the Twins with four home runs and not a single one of them has been remotely cheap. The South Korean import has jaw-dropping power. But of course, that was never really in question. The uncertainty with the 29-year-old always surrounded his ability to make enough contact to be a quality offensive player overall, rather than an out machine who occasionally gets a hold of one.
On that matter, the jury was out after a spring training in which Park struck out 17 times with only one walk in 61 plate appearances. Concern grew during Minnesota's season-opening homestand, in which he struck out 11 times in 21 plate appearances. When the rookie put up a golden sombrero in the final game at Kansas City, it became reasonable to wonder if some time in the minors might be appropriate.
Those contact issues subsided in a big way during the Twins' just-completed homestand. He hasn't had a game with multiple strikeouts since leaving KC. At Target Field he fanned only five times total in 27 trips.
Sure, the team has been facing lighter opposition than in those first two series. But these are big-league pitchers and Park has had the look of a big-league hitter while standing in against them, which was not really the case in Week One.
It appears that he's making some adjustments or at least getting more comfortable – an aspect of his game that initially drew the Twins to him. At the time of the signing, front office officials expressed confidence in Park's adaptability. This is a guy, after all, who improved in each of his five seasons with Nexen in the Korean Baseball Organization, going from solid slugger to MVP superstar.
When asked about his impressions of the new acquisition in spring training, assistant general manager Rob Antony remarked that he was struck by Park's patience.
"You see the strikeouts," Antony said, "so you think, OK, he takes a huge hack, or he chases a lot of bad pitches. I think he's been fairly disciplined."
While his 16-to-4 K/BB ratio doesn't exactly illustrate it, Park has been better than expected in that area. He has swung at 26.8 percent of pitches outside the strike zone, placing him in the middle of the pack among Twins hitters and actually a tad below the major-league average.
Inexperience has shone through for several pressing hitters in the lineup but the 29-year-old was unfazed by his challenging initial exposure to the majors. His aptitude for the game has been on display all over – solid defense at first, heads-up base running, even his celebratory handshakes are on point – and that it's all come to him so quickly is awfully impressive.
Park has raw power that stands out even on a roster with Miguel Sano and Oswaldo Arcia, and he's demonstrated it, but we've also seen him slash a single between first and second to beat the shift, deliver in several clutch spots, and consistently work deep counts (he leads the team in pitches per plate appearance). The Twins might have found themselves a truly special player here.
At the very least, Park appears to be pretty damn comfortable hitting at Target Field, which would seem to bode well for the next four years.
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