{"id":281828,"date":"2024-04-26T09:43:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T14:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=281828"},"modified":"2024-04-26T10:57:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T15:57:06","slug":"julien-jumpstarts-twins-in-sweep-of-white-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=281828","title":{"rendered":"Julien jumpstarts Twins’ in sweep of White Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Minneapolis – The Twins never really need any excuse to mess with Edouard Julien<\/a>, who is often graciously the butt of jokes<\/a> in the clubhouse. But manager Rocco Baldelli just decided to stir the pot a bit earlier this week, when he moved Julien down a slot from his customary leadoff position, just to see if some change might help him break out of his slump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll put Eddy in the blender a little bit and shake him up, and move him around,\u201d Baldelli said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever it is, it looks like it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blended Eddy, or whatever he is these days, has locked in since then, peppering three homers over the Target Field walls this series, including a pair of solo shots in Thursday afternoon\u2019s 6-3 victory<\/a> over the White Sox that helped secure a much-needed four-game sweep that brought Minnesota (11-13) all the way back to within two games of .500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s going to be a good flight to L.A., right?\u201d Julien said as the team opens a three-game road set with the Angels on Friday. \u201cJust, everybody’s hit the ball, pretty much, this week. It’s going to be good vibes on the flight, and I think we needed that for our mental [state].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Julien\u2019s homer to right field in the sixth that finally broke the seal against White Sox starter Michael Soroka, who hadn\u2019t been getting any swings and misses, but had skirted around damage all game. Jeffers immediately erased the early deficit by going back-to-back with Julien to prime the Twins\u2019 go-ahead, three-run frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julien crushed his team-leading seventh homer an inning later, Minnesota went back-to-back again for insurance runs from Carlos Santana and Jose Miranda, and that was that, as the club took care of business against a deeply struggling White Sox team behind its season-high five long balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s a full clubhouse of big league baseball players and we won four games,\u201d Ryan Jeffers said. \u201cWe could have easily come in here and not shown up, and lost some of these games. To be the team we want to be, you’ve got to beat the teams you’re supposed to beat. We did a good job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the eternal wisdom of Rocco\u2019s father, Dan Baldelli, it might help to just \u201cslap \u2018em around a bit\u201d to wake someone up — though the skipper obviously isn\u2019t going to take that literally. He didn\u2019t consult with Julien before bumping the second baseman down a slot — and Julien cited the eternal wisdom of former teammate Joey Gallo in noting he\u2019d rather hit second anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In focusing so much on improving against left-handed pitching, Julien thought he might perhaps have lost some feel against right-handed pitching — but the way to know he\u2019s feeling like himself again is when he shocks the stadium by hitting homers to his pull side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julien did that twice this series: once on Monday, and again for his second blast on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPull is a little bit more satisfying, because I don’t do it,\u201d Julien said. \u201cEverybody’s surprised when I do it. Even myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever Julien is in the lineup, the Twins rely on him to set the tone, and after Jeffers followed with that game-tying blast in the sixth, the dominoes kept falling as the pressure continued to ease from the shoulders of Minnesota\u2019s slowest-starting hitters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most notably, Santana showed signs of life with a 400-foot homer in the eighth, a continuation of his harder contact of late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m not trying to swing so hard and meet my pitch, that’s my focus right now,\u201d Santana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Carlos Correa perhaps expected to return on the upcoming road trip featuring three games against the Angels and three more against these White Sox, who dropped to 3-22 on the season, there\u2019s a chance for the Twins to carry some real momentum through the end of an otherwise extremely challenging start to their 2024 season now that they\u2019ve regrouped a bit this series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while, it seemed Minnesota didn\u2019t have many answers to publicly offer as to how things were going to turn around — but a struggling White Sox team found them at the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to whether Baldelli shuffling Julien around on a whim actually helped? Who knows. But they\u2019ll take the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHitting is contagious,\u201d Jeffers said. \u201cOne way or the other. If it’s going bad, it’s going bad for everybody. If it’s good, it becomes contagious that way, too. I think we can build off this for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minneapolis – The Twins never really need any excuse to mess with Edouard Julien, who is often graciously the butt of jokes in the clubhouse. But manager Rocco Baldelli just decided to stir the pot a bit earlier this week, when he moved Julien down a slot from his customary leadoff position, just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":275699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281844,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281828\/revisions\/281844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/275699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}