The Twins fell 5-1 to the Cleveland Guardians in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. It’s a killer loss for the Twins as they are now six games behind Cleveland for first place in the AL Central.
But as the Twins’ playoff hopes are quickly dying, Matt Wallner’s professional baseball career is just coming to life. Saturday was his major league debut and it’ll be a memorable one as his first career hit was a solo home run off former Cy Young winner Shane Bieber in the eighth inning.
MATT WALLNER HOME RUN!!
How about that for the Minnesota kid's first big-league hit? 🤩 #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/TOPa46CkAz
— FanDuel Sports Network North (@FanDuelSN_NOR) September 17, 2022
The 24-year-old from Forest Lake, who was Minnesota’s Mr. Baseball winner as a senior at Forest Lake High School in 2016, was called up by the Twins when Max Kepler was placed on the injured list Saturday.
Wallner had been crushing the ball at Triple-A St. Paul, getting especially hot in September as 13 of his 18 hits were for extra bases: nine doubles, two triples and two homers. Between Double-A Wichita and Triple-A St. Paul this season, Wallner hit 27 homers and drove in 95 runs.
But as good as Wallner was, the Twins as a whole were bad.
Louie Varland, making his second career start, gave up four runs on nine hits in five innings. Bieber, meanwhile, dominated the Twins, holding them to four hits in eight innings. Emmanuel Clase needed just eight pitches to close the game in the ninth.
Game 2 of the doubleheader starts at 6:10 p.m.
