Jenkins' 1st career pinch single perfect capper to sizzling road trip

SAN FRANCISCO -- It was far too early to worry, but, well, it didn’t feel great. Following a sensational start to his big league career, Walker Jenkins promptly fell into his first slump in the Majors. He boarded a flight to California last week sporting a batting average that started with a zero.

That’s the good thing about small sample sizes, though: they can turn quickly. A week later, Jenkins heads back to Minnesota as one of the hottest players in the American League, riding a seven-game hitting streak and seeing much better numbers next to his name on the scoreboard.

And he even has another first to add to his growing list: his first pinch-hit at any level of professional baseball.

Jenkins put a capper on his memorable week with an RBI pinch-single on Wednesday afternoon that broke a tie and sent the Twins to a 4-2 win over the Giants at Oracle Park. The victory gave the Twins their first road series win since early July and cemented a winning final road trip of the season.

Held out of the starting lineup with a lefty on the mound for San Francisco, Jenkins nonetheless found a way to contribute. With one out and a runner on second in the seventh inning, and righty reliever Dylan Smith in the game, manager Derek Shelton called on Jenkins to pinch-hit for Ben Ross.

It was his first time pinch-hitting in his professional career, but he was unfazed. Jenkins jumped a first-pitch curveball from Smith and poked it through the right side for the go-ahead run. It gave him a hit in every game of the road trip, and either an RBI or a run scored in seven of his last eight games.

Pinch-hitting can be a very different challenge, but Jenkins said he didn’t change a thing.

“Definitely not,” he said. “Same approach I normally have.”

Shelton didn’t hesitate to use the rookie for the assignment, but he also acknowledged that there was no way of knowing how it would go.

“It's something we've talked about over the last few years,” Shelton said, “is how do you teach guys to do it? You can't. It's not the same in the Minor Leagues as the big leagues. Big hit for us right there. Big situation and he came in and did a nice job. It's good to see.”

In seven games in Anaheim and San Francisco, Jenkins tallied 12 hits, three homers, four RBIs, six runs, and struck out exactly once. It’s the kind of jolt the club had in mind when it promoted him from Triple-A St. Paul on Aug. 28, and it just took a couple of weeks to get here.

Jenkins was held out of the lineup on the final day of the Twins’ last homestand on Sept. 16, and he carried an .089/.212/.200 line with him that day. He had gone 0-for-16 over his previous five starts with eight strikeouts and one walk.

But the first night in Anaheim, Jenkins had three hits and a clutch home run, and the production started flowing from there. He comes home with a much more respectable .222 average and 717 OPS, having shown what was always expected: that he can hit big league pitching.

“You've got to give him credit,” Shelton said. “When you're [4-for-45], then to go into Anaheim and do what he did, and then come back here, just to climb up. He's going to be a good hitter. He's going to play in the league for a long time. Just to be able to balance that out as we get toward the end of the season is extremely important.”