Matt Wallner becomes solid everyday player as Twins hit the home stretch

StatCast uses high-speed cameras and motion-detecting radar to precisely measure everything that happens on major league diamonds. Byron Buxton isn’t buying its numbers, though.

When Matt Wallner demolished a fastball by Angels pitcher Griffin Canning on Tuesday and drove it over the rows of Target Field seats and onto the plaza in right field, StatCast determined it had traveled 444 feet, the second-longest home run by a Twins player this season, bettered only by Buxton’s 456-footer at Arizona on June 27.

“Ain’t no way!” Buxton said Wednesday. “He hit it 114 miles per hour! That one was way longer than mine!”

It’s an interesting debate, and probably not the last time in Wallner’s career that his tape-measure distances will be disputed. The third-year outfielder from Forest Lake has smashed four of the 10 longest home runs by the Twins this season, according to StatCast (Buxton has three). And none of them carried as far as a couple he hit last season, topped by his 463-foot cannon shot last September that nearly hit the scoreboard atop Target Field’s upper deck in right-center.

“If I get them, it’s usually good. It’s about hitting the ball,” Wallner said dryly. “I’m working on that a lot. It’s hard. It is hard. But it’s just always fun to get into one.”

Perhaps almost as awe-inspiring as those rockets, for manager Rocco Baldelli, is when they are coming. Wallner has homered three times in the past week, two of them among the team’s 10 longest this season. He’s the only Twins player who has reached those stratospheric distances since July.

“He’s held up incredibly well. The guy shows up to play every day, and he is not looking for a break,” Baldelli said. “He’s just ready to go. That’s kind of unique.”

Baldelli compared Wallner to former Twins infielder Jorge Polanco or, from back in the manager’s playing days, current Twins broadcaster and 2006 American League MVP Justin Morneau, saying those players have a rare ability to withstand the normal weariness of a 162-game schedule.

“You don’t have to worry about playing him nine days in a row,” even in September, Baldelli said. “Most guys, just about all of them [in MLB], begin to struggle physically at some point. But he holds up really well. It’s really impressive.”

Call him the low-maintenance slugger. Wallner has appeared in all 32 Twins games since Aug. 9, and has started 28 of them during a span that gave the team only two off days. Last season, he played in 65 of the Twins’ 68 games after the All-Star break and hit 13 of his 14 home runs during that time.

“I feel good, honestly. I like playing every day. It’s something I hope to do throughout my career,” Wallner said. “I don’t feel as good as I did Feb. 10, but I would say 99 percent is good. Like, really good.”

It’s especially remarkable when you consider he’s also been hit by 13 pitches this season, and 28 during his three partial seasons, most by a Twin this early in his career.

“[Polanco] was like that when he was younger and healthier,” Baldelli said of the infielder, traded to Seattle last winter. “You could just put him in the lineup every single day. And you don’t think, like, ‘Oh, he went 0-for-8 his last two games, or he’s 1-for-12 and he doesn’t look good, do we have to get him out of there?’ It’s like, ‘No, you don’t.’ You just keep playing him. And Wally’s kind of like that.”

Well, perhaps he is now. Actually, Wallner had a miserable spring, batting just .132 in Grapefruit League games, then went 2-for-25 with 17 strikeouts over the season’s first 15 games. His lone home run came against a position player, Detroit infielder Zach McKinstry. The slump finally forced the Twins to send him back to Class AAA St. Paul.

But Wallner slugged 19 home runs in May and June with the Saints and earned a call-up in early July. And since then, he’s blossomed into perhaps the Twins’ most formidable slugger, with a dozen more home runs and a .948 OPS. With Max Kepler on the injured list, Wallner has taken over everyday duties in right field, perhaps giving the Twins a preview of the future, given that Kepler is a free agent this winter.

What changed? “Nothing crazy. Just little things in my swing,” Wallner said. “Mostly I’m just moving better. I was a little stiff, and that affects my swing, but I’m moving really well now.”

There are still things to work on — Wallner, a lefthanded hitter, is batting just .212 with one home run against lefthanded pitchers — but “I’m trying to get better every day,” he said. “Just knowing that I can get through something like [his awful April], that I can overcome that, it helps.”

That’s what Baldelli figures, too.

“Sometimes you have to struggle, you have to feel pain, you have to deal with severe frustrations. Now, what are you going to ultimately do about it?” Baldelli said. “He doesn’t break. He will bend and he’ll struggle like everyone else, but the kid doesn’t seem to break. He just keeps coming back.”