The Twins may have left Angel Stadium with a loss on Thursday, but Walker Jenkins gave them the kind of moment that can stick.
Trailing 3-1 with two outs in the top of the ninth, Jenkins unloaded on a 100.9 mph fastball from Ben Joyce and sent it out for a game-tying two-run homer. It was a huge swing in a game Minnesota went on to lose, but for Jenkins, it was the sort of breakthrough that can matter more than the final score.
Down to the Twins last out, Walker Jenkins ties it with a homer! pic.twitter.com/3vvIb4tbeT
- MLB (@MLB) September 18, 2026
The blast was Jenkins’ first career home run off a real pitcher. His previous homer came against Detroit Tigers utilityman Zach McKinstry in a blowout win late last month.
Per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, Joyce’s 100.9 mph pitch was the second-fastest pitch a Twins player has homered off since tracking began in 2008. The only faster one came when now-Angels manager Kurt Suzuki hit a 102.6 mph pitch in 2016.
Jenkins finished 3-for-4 with the homer and two singles, his best night at the plate so far. That matters because the start to his big-league career has been rough: he entered Thursday hitting .143/.250/.306 with a 58 wRC+ over his first 57 plate appearances.
That’s why the Twins can take something real from this game even in defeat. Jenkins, 21, has usually needed time to settle in after each promotion, and this looks like another one of those stretches where patience pays off.
There’s also the bigger picture around him. With the CBA set to expire on Dec. 1, a lockout feels like the expectation around the league, and if regular-season games are wiped out, only players not on 40-man rosters would be eligible to play.
A stint with the St. Paul Saints would be nice if that happens, but for now, MLB reps are the best thing for him.
When Minnesota called Jenkins up, the club was still in the postseason race. That’s no longer the case. The Twins are now seven games back of the final Wild Card spot with nine games left.
That’s part of why Thursday’s homer carries extra weight. Jenkins is getting the kind of experience that could set him up for a much better first full season in the majors. Mike Trout had a .672 OPS over 40 games in his first big-league season, and while no one should be expecting Jenkins to follow that same arc, the point is clear: a slow start doesn’t have to mean much in the long run.
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Walker Jenkins keeps giving Twins fans reasons to look past the standings and focus on what might be coming next. The clubs top prospect, called up Aug. 28 and ranked No. 14 overall in baseball, delivered one of the biggest swings of the night at Angel Stadium when he turned on a 100.9 mph fastball from Angels reliever Ben Joyce and drove a two-run, game-tying homer in the ninth inning. He added three hits on the night, a strong showing for a player still finding his footing in the majors.
The Twins still came up short in a 5-4 extra-inning loss, but Jenkins response mattered more than the final score in the long view. After a difficult start to his Major League career, he showed the kind of calm and competitiveness that teams want to see from a young hitter under pressure, and the performance only added to the sense that Minnesota may already have a cornerstone in the making. [Read more 🡒]
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Minnesota still walked away with the wrong kind of familiar ending, though, as the Angels finished it with a walk-off single in the bottom of the tenth. For a Twins club trying to turn a difficult night into something salvageable, the frustration is in how close it came to being a statement comeback, only to become another late collapse with another game still to come in the same series the next day. [Read more 🡒]
Rod Carew Just Gave These Twins Players Something Few Ever Get
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Manager Derek Shelton and players such as Taylor Rogers and Ryan Jeffers welcomed the chance to be around him and pick up whatever they could from his experience. Carew means something on both sides of this matchup, with his number retired by the Twins and the Angels, and his presence offered a reminder that some baseball lessons go beyond the box score, even if the full impact of the visit is still more felt than measured. [Read more 🡒]