NEW YORK — A little more than two hours before Wednesday night’s game was scheduled to start, the Twins’ clubhouse emptied out, leaving just a few players remaining. There was a special speaker tapped to talk to the team’s pitchers, and even manager Rocco Baldelli wanted to listen, hustling away from his media session to attend.
But there was at least one straggler in the clubhouse who didn’t deem it necessary to listen. Kody Clemens, after all, had been receiving advice from the speaker for nearly three decades. That’s because the speaker was his father, seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.
The pitchers, unsurprisingly, were very interested in hearing what he had to say.
“He’s a legend, so any time you can learn from a legend, it’s helpful,” reliever Brooks Kriske said.
Clemens, a two-time Most Valuable Player, 11-time all-star and one of the best to ever take the mound, focused much of his talk on confidence, Kriske and fellow pitcher Thomas Hatch said. The message was to “trust your stuff, and (that) it stacks up with anybody that we play,” Hatch said.
The former pitcher, who won 354 games over the course of his 24-year major league career, has been popping up at Twins games since his son was acquired in a late-April trade for cash considerations from the Philadelphia Phillies, though this was the first time he addressed the pitching staff like that. A former Yankee, Clemens participated in the Yankees’ Old-Timers Game over the weekend and then stayed in New York to watch his son play.
“He was talking about it — everyone in today’s game’s got great stuff,” Kriske said. “It’s just trusting yourself and believing in yourself, and having that confidence that your best stuff could beat any hitter out there.”
Buxton moves in lineup
Byron Buxton was placed atop the team’s lineup in early May, and for much of the season, that’s where he remained.
It wasn’t until Tuesday night in New York that Baldelli finally made a change, moving the star center fielder down one spot in the lineup.
“(I’m) trying to just give him a little bit more of an opportunity to hit with people on base in front of him,” Baldelli said. “He has obviously been very good and very good in the leadoff spot. He was also very good before he went into the leadoff spot.”
All of that is true.
In 58 games hitting leadoff, Buxton has hit .295 with a .982 OPS this season. Those numbers have been strong, though slightly less so, when hitting lower in the order.
Buxton, Baldelli said, volunteered to hit anywhere without the manager asking him, though he said he thinks the center fielder enjoys leading off.
“He is about winning and trying to help do his part,” Baldelli said. “As a team, we also didn’t score a ton of runs when he was in the leadoff spot. He was incredible, and as a group, we didn’t really score very much. It’s just an effort to move some guys around, maybe get some people on base in front of him.”
Briefly
The Twins are scheduled to send Bailey Ober to the mound on Thursday when they return to Target Field to take on the Detroit Tigers. He is slated to face reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. … Former Twin Chris Paddack, who was traded at the deadline, is scheduled to pitch against the Twins later in the series.
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