Twins' Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien witness, and barely avoid, frightening traffic incident

FORT MYERS, FLA. - Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien hadn’t traveled even a mile from Twins camp Monday morning, heading for the team’s game with the Rays in Port Charlotte, when Wallner began screaming.

“We were just driving straight on [Six Mile Cypress Parkway], and we see a car that was going pretty fast,” Julien recounted Thursday. Wallner “started screaming. … He was cussing a little bit, and I’ve never heard Wallner scared like that.”

He had good reason. The oncoming car was in the median of the parkway, which passes the Twins’ Lee Health Sports Complex, knocking down bushes and small trees as it drove out of control at a high speed. Then things got worse.

“All of a sudden, it jumps up, like six feet in the air,” Julien said. “I saw under the car — that’s how far up he was.”

The airborne car passed directly over the car in front of them, which was carrying reliever Jorge Alcala and his brother, Juan, who was at the wheel.

“He almost collided with Alcala, and he almost collided with us at the same time. It was pretty crazy,” Julien said. “If Wallner didn’t [swerve] into the right lane, it would have hit us.”

Instead, the car somehow avoided both and ran off the road, its hood becoming detached by the impact and falling to the ground. “I think he got back on the road,” Julien said. “I don’t know what happened to him, but he needs to lose his driver’s license, that’s what needs to happen.”

The players normally would have taken the team’s bus, but they weren’t on the original travel roster. When the forecast called for heavy rain, which indeed canceled the game after two innings, the Twins changed the roster, and the players were asked to drive to Charlotte Sports Park.

It nearly ended in disaster. As they continued up the parkway, Wallner pulled alongside the Alcalas’ car. “I rolled down my window and looked at [Jorge Alcala], and he was tapping his chest, like his heartbeat was going nuts.”

Maybe it still is, a few days later.

“It was something really scary, a little traumatizing. But thanks to God” we survived, Alcala said. “Every time I leave my home, I thank God for another day.”

Royce Lewis took a 3-2 cutter from Pirates starter Caleb Ferguson in the first inning of the Twins’ 12-1 loss at Hammond Stadium on Thursday, and took a step toward first base. Before he could go any farther, umpire John Tumpane called strike three, ending the inning.

Lewis, seemingly shocked by the call, immediately tapped his helmet, signaling a challenge of Tumpane’s call. The image of the pitch’s path was displayed on the scoreboard, showing that the very top of the baseball had clipped the very bottom of the strike zone.

Lewis was out, stranding two runners on base and erasing one of the Twins’ two challenges. But the decision to challenge wasn’t as emotional or reactionary as it looked, the third baseman said afterward.

“No, it was more like, why not? Runners-on-base situations, I feel like it’s bigger stakes,” Lewis said. “If there’s no men on, I don’t think it’s worth a challenge unless it’s 100 percent obvious. But I thought it was very close, which it was. It was very close.”

Counting games at Class AAA St. Paul, it’s the third time in his career Lewis has challenged an umpire’s call, “and I’ve lost all three. It’s really hard,” Lewis said. “But it’s situational. You’ve got to know the situation. Hey, that pitch might be overturned. It could have been bases loaded in that situation, and it brings up Willi Castro, who’s swinging a hot bat.”

Castro, ironically, successfully challenged a third-strike call in the third inning but might wish he hadn’t. On the next pitch, Castro hit into an inning-ending double play.

Lewis said he is surprised the challenge system seems to be helping pitchers more than hitters.

“I always thought it was going to be more hitter-friendly. But now that I’ve seen big-leaguers using it in the spring, [pitchers are] clipping the zone, barely, because their stuff is moving,” Lewis said. “It’s still pitcher-friendly, which is interesting because I think [MLB] clearly want more offense by doing it. So it’s going to be a lot more walks, and I think pitchers are going to try to really clip the edges like they are. So you’re going to see [fewer pitches] in the middle of the zone.”