CHICAGO -- Kody Clemens walked into Wrigley Field carrying a skid and walked out having powered every run Minnesota scored.
That was the whole story for the Twins on Saturday. Their offense was mostly quiet, their rally in the ninth unraveled on a baserunning mistake, and they lost 6-2 to the Cubs. But Clemens gave them life twice, homering in the second inning and again later in the day to account for both Minnesota runs.
His first shot came against Cubs starter Matthew Boyd, who had been sharp otherwise. With two outs and the Twins down a run, Clemens jumped on a 2-2 four-seam fastball over the middle and sent it toward right field. The ball left his bat at 106 mph and just cleared the wall to tie the game at 1.
Five innings later, Caleb Thielbar tried to beat him with sweepers. Clemens had already seen two of them - the first fouled back, the second taken for a ball - before the third one stayed in the middle. He didn’t miss that time, launching a Statcast-projected 391-foot homer into the right-field bleachers to pull Minnesota within three.
“In this game, you’ve just got to take advantage of the ones that are in the heart of the plate or you’re going to get out,” Clemens said. “Thankfully, I put a good swing on it there and, like I said, was lucky enough to get one down the middle.”
The second homer came off the bat at 102.7 mph with a 37-degree launch angle, a much higher flight than the first one. Together, the blasts made it the third multihomer game of Clemens’ career and his second this season, after another two-homer day June 4 against the Royals.
Both homers came against left-handed pitching, which matters for a hitter who wasn’t always in the lineup against lefties earlier in the year. It also snapped a rough stretch for Clemens, whose first homer ended a 0-for-19 skid.
Manager Derek Shelton said Clemens spent time before the game working with assistant hitting coach Rayden Sierra after feeling a little off over the previous few days.
“He made a nice adjustment,” Shelton said. “I know he did some work with Rayden today, and we saw it.
Going into the break, he had run pretty hard. It looked like he kind of wore down a little bit.
But to be able to see him come out today and have good swings, I think was really encouraging.”
Clemens said the last couple of days had felt like work.
“The past two days have been kind of a grind,” Clemens said. “I was just trying to get back to a good spot and make sure my mechanics were back to where they were.
I did some work looking at some video and stuff like that today just to make sure I was where I was. Made a few adjustments with Ray, and it was good.”
The changes showed up right away. Boyd came at him with a fastball, and Clemens was ready. Later, Thielbar challenged him with sweepers, and Clemens adjusted again.
He’s seen fastballs on 56 percent of the pitches he’s faced this season, and that mix has helped make him one of Minnesota’s most reliable bats. Brooks Lee put it plainly.
“Kody’s everything to the offense,” Lee said. “He’s hitting lefties, he’s hitting righties.
He does a great job getting the right pitch to hit, and he doesn’t miss. It’s pretty cool to see.”
Minnesota still had one last chance in the ninth, getting its first two hitters on base. But a baserunning mistake on Lee’s single led to two outs and shut the door on the rally.
The loss dropped the Twins back below .500 at 49-50, one day after they had reached that mark for the first time since April 22.
For most of the lineup, Saturday never got going. For Clemens, it was a day that showed how quickly a few mechanical tweaks and a couple of pitches in the right spot can change the feel of everything.
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