Jorge Polanco, Walk-off King

There have been very few reasons for joy in Minnesota this year. The Twins entered the season as slight favorites to win their third-straight AL Central division crown, but an early slump in April buried them in the standings and they haven’t sniffed the postseason race since. For a team with no hope of playing October baseball, the dog days of August can feel a bit monotonous — unless a little artificial excitement can be created by winning a bunch of close games. Indeed, the Twins last three wins have all been walk-offs, and to make things even more interesting, Jorge Polanco has driven in the winning run in each of them.

Each of the last 3 @Twins victories has ended with a Jorge Polanco walkoff.

He's the first player with a walkoff RBI in 3 straight team wins since David Ortiz in the 2004 playoffs, and the first in the regular season since Tony Pena in June 1982.

— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) August 18, 2021

On Sunday afternoon, the Twins were wrapping up a three-game series against the Rays. They had split the previous two games and had taken two of three from the White Sox before that. After climbing to a 4-0 lead through four innings, Minnesota’s pitching staff allowed four runs to score in the next three frames. The game went into the bottom of the ninth inning tied. Max Kepler led off with a double down the left field line and advanced to third after Austin Meadows misplayed the ball in the corner.

Polanco was the next man up and lifted a 0-1 slider from Matt Wisler deep into right field for the game-winning sacrifice fly.

The next day, Cleveland was in town. The game was a back-and-forth affair over the first six innings, with each team scoring four runs. Then the bats went silent and the game remained tied into the 10th inning. Cleveland failed to score the runner from second in the top of the inning. The Twins loaded the based in the bottom half of the frame but an odd 5-2 double-play erased the runners on second and third. With no outs to give and runners on first and second, Polanco stepped up to the plate again. He went right after a first-pitch changeup from Nick Wittgren and laced a double into right field for the win.

Two days later, Minnesota and Cleveland were playing the rubber match of their three-game set. It was a wild one. The away team scored a run in each of the first five innings but the Twins put together a long rally in the bottom of the fifth, scoring five runs and taking a 7-5 lead. That score held until the ninth, when Cleveland got to the Twins closer and scored twice to tie the game. Some fantastic defense from both teams kept the game tied through the top of the 11th but that tight fielding gave way in the bottom half of the inning. An error and a walk loaded the bases for who else but Polanco. And like his previous two winning at-bats, he wasted little time driving in the winning run. On a 0-1 pitch, he lined a single into right field for his third game-winning hit in four days.

Those three walk-off winners gave Polanco five on the season, elevating him into some historic company.

Most walk-off RBI in a season, since 1990:

2009 Andre Ethier: 6
2021 Jorge Polanco: 5
2006 David Ortiz: 5
2004 Joe Crede: 5

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) August 18, 2021

Those hits also raised Polanco’s Clutch score by 0.28, up to 1.83, the highest mark in the majors. Of course, performing well in high-leverage situations is one thing, but Polanco is in the midst of a resurgent season no matter the game state.

After a breakout season in 2019, he struggled through an ugly campaign last year. His wRC+ dropped from 120 to just 80 and he never really looked like himself. The culprit was an ankle injury that hadn’t healed correctly, even after offseason surgery in November 2019. The injury continued to nag him but he opted to play through the pain during the shortened season. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best idea, especially since he went under the knife for the second time this past offseason to correct the same issue.

As a switch hitter, Polanco’s injured ankle really affected his left-handed swing. Unable to fully use his right leg, he subtly shifted his swing mechanics to ensure his injury wasn’t taking the brunt of each swing. “When you have pain in some part of the body, you’re always trying to compensate with another part of the body, so that makes you do stuff you don’t usually do,” Polanco said in early May of this year. At that point, he had struggled through a rough month of April in which he hit .207/.287/.248. He was still trying to rediscover the swing mechanics that had helped him breakout in 2019.

Something must have clicked after that first month of the season because he’s absolutely raked since the calendar turned over to May. Over the last three and a half months, Polanco has hit .287/.350/.529, good for a 138 wRC+. He’s just one home run away from matching the career-high he set in 2019 and his overall offensive production — even with his bad April included — is outpacing that breakout season.

All of his batted ball peripherals paint a picture of a batter whose swing was out of whack last year but who has regained his stroke this season:

Last year, Polanco’s average exit velocity fell by 1.5 mph and his barrel rate dropped by 3.5 points. His average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives dropped another full tick. All of his batted ball peripherals have bounced back and then some this season, with each of them sitting at career-high points so far.

The issues his injured ankle created become much more stark when we break his batted ball peripherals down by handedness:

Since his right ankle was the source of his problems, his left-handed swing suffered most since he couldn’t rely on his plant leg during his swing. He just couldn’t make quality contact against right-handed pitching last year. Now that his ankle is healed, he’s back to crushing the ball from the left side.

Very few things have gone right for the Twins this year. But with many of their core players underperforming, Polanco’s resurgence has been a bright spot. He overcame an injury that wouldn’t go away and the worst season of his career and eventually got back on track. With 2020 looking like just a blip in a career on an upward arc, the Twins can now count on Polanco as one of their best hitters. Producing a little magic in the biggest moments of the season is just a fun side effect of his success.