'It's nuts': Polanco in rare MIN air with 4 XBH

CLEVELAND -- There’s simply no easy way to pitch against Jorge Polanco right now.

Polanco put four different pitch types in play spanning both sides of the plate -- and he cranked them all to left field with authority for three doubles and a homer, good for a career-high four extra-base hits. Polanco’s 4-for-5 night and Byron Buxton’s first homer since coming off the injured list paced the Twins as they surged to a 5-2 win over Cleveland at Progressive Field on Monday night.

Even amid Polanco’s torrid second half, his season numbers might not pop to the eye because of his slow start to the season, so let’s summarize it this way: His show at the plate on Monday gave him 32 doubles and a career-high 27 homers alongside his 10 stolen bases, making him one of three players in the Majors to hit those marks alongside Marcus Semien of the Blue Jays and Bryce Harper of the Phillies.

“It’s nuts,” said starter Bailey Ober, who allowed two runs in four innings. “It feels like every single at bat, he’s going to go crazy. … It’s like video game numbers right now for him. He deserves it and works hard every single day.”

Had it not been for Cleveland left fielder Oscar Mercado’s diving stop on Polanco’s first-inning liner down the left-field line, Polanco might have reached third base, and he would have been on cycle watch for the second time in three games. He finished a triple shy of the cycle on Saturday in Tampa Bay.

“Sometimes, when we're seeing the ball good, for me, it's the timing,” Polanco said. “When the timing is not right, sometimes, you lose the ball. But today, I was seeing the ball really good, and like I said, I was on time at the plate."

Polanco’s feat was more rare than a cycle, anyway, considering 11 Twins have hit for the cycle in club history -- including Polanco himself. He joined only Nelson Cruz and Michael Cuddyer as Twins with three doubles and a homer in the same game. Cruz, Cuddyer, Kirby Puckett, Corey Koskie, Rich Becker and Cesar Tovar are the only other players in Twins history with four extra-base hits in a game.

“His preparation is excellent,” acting manager Bill Evers said. “He takes great pride in every at-bat and understands what he needs to do to get a pitch that he can drive, so tonight was special -- and three doubles and a home run, it doesn’t get any better than that. What more can you say about a guy that’s really on fire right now?”

It’s safe to say at this point that rumors of Polanco’s demise amid the .658 OPS he put up last year while playing through ankle issues and the .555 OPS he followed with this April have long since been discredited. The second baseman is set to achieve career-best marks in both his traditional statistics and his underlying numbers -- exit velocities, barrel rates and the like -- with what he describes is still the same approach he’s used the whole time: get his pitch, and hit it hard.

For him, that involves timing up the fastballs and adapting to the offspeed pitches as they come in -- and even so, he can still hit those slower offerings with authority, as he showed by crushing a changeup, four-seamer and slider from left-hander Logan Allen and a sinker from right-hander Justin Garza before even fouling off several tough pitches from left-hander Sam Hentges in a seven-pitch strikeout in the ninth.

He’s been doing that for quite some time now, with his slow start long forgotten amid a .320/.371/.632 line since July 1, with 18 homers, 15 doubles and 52 RBIs in that stretch, tied with Joey Votto for the third-most homers in MLB in that span, behind only Salvador Perez and Kyle Seager.

“It’s more thrilling to watch him overcome some adversity and put in the time and effort, and it’s working out for him,” Evers added. “The comfort level that he’s seeing pitches at now is wonderful in that he’s hitting the back side of the baseball and driving the baseball. This year, for me -- and I can’t speak for him -- but it’s more rewarding in that he’s overcome some great adversity and put up some big numbers.”

The Twins raced out to an early lead when Buxton’s leadoff single and Polanco’s double in the first were followed by a two-run single from Rob Refsnyder. Polanco’s no-doubt blast over Mercado’s head in the third and Buxton’s first homer since June 20 padded Minnesota’s lead in support of the pitching tandem of Ober and Michael Pineda, who held Cleveland to two runs in seven frames to make for a low-stress evening in the first-base dugout.