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They call him “Donnie Barrels,” but truthfully, he’s always aspired to be more of a “Donnie Dingers.”

We’re talking about 35-year-old veteran Donovan Solano, whose single on Saturday stretched his hitting streak to a team-high 10 games. According to Solano, the “Donnie Barrels” nickname is thought to have been given to him by former Giants teammate Mike Yastrzemski, referring, of course, to Solano’s well-established penchant for putting barrel to ball.

It’s just that … well, he wishes those barreled balls would please go over the outfield wall.

“To be honest with you, I want to hit homers,” Solano said with a smile. “I want to hit like the big dudes. But this is what it is for me. Try to be simple, and I'm going to be happy with what God gave to me -- put the ball in play, try to find holes, get on base.”

Originally signed during Spring Training to serve as a platoon bat against lefties, mostly at first base, Solano has instead been the club’s everyday first baseman while Joey Gallo has been sidelined with a mild right intercostal issue. It hasn’t mattered that the Twins haven’t faced many left-handed starters this season; Solano is still the team leader in hits (though none of them have been homers).

“He just hits a lot of line drives,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It's also the name of this game. If you have a bunch of guys that hit the ball on the barrel often, as often as he does, I think you're going to have a productive offense.”

Raised in a household with a father who was once an amateur baseball player in Barranquilla, Colombia, Solano followed in the footsteps of Dad and an older brother by choosing baseball over soccer and identified around the age of 12-13 that he wanted to pursue a professional career.

He doesn’t really remember anyone _teaching _him how to hit, per se. He remembers his dad teaching him how to swing a bat when he was very young, but he claims that he has just always been this kind of hitter, one who can spray baseballs all over the field, without a ton of power.

He’s not anything like the hitters he admires around the game -- Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatís Jr., Mookie Betts -- since he’s never cracked more than seven homers in a season. He’s wishful for power, but he acknowledges that at this age, he is who he is -- and needs to deliver results.

Here was my question, then: Even if he’s not hitting homers like his favorite players around the game, does he take pride in the fact that he is a rare .300 hitter in modern baseball?

There were 71 hitters in the Majors with 20 or more homers last season, compared to only 11 qualified hitters who hit .300. (Even when you remove the “qualified” modifier there, you only jump up to 43 players who fit the bill.)

"Yeah, I know,” Solano said. “I know, but the thing for me is how I can help my team win. Homers have lots of use within the game, and I prefer that to even hitting .300. But you know, it's what it is for me. I take it. I'm happy. I can try to do what I'm doing. I think with that, I can help this team win.”

There’s no special approach, no drills, no significant hitting influences, no different training. He just keeps it simple and does his own thing. See the ball, hit the ball.

He was a late bloomer in the Major Leagues. He has been in the big leagues for parts of 10 seasons, but that stretch was exactly bisected by a two-year gap in which he was held down in the Minors. A change to elevate the ball a bit more led to a career resurgence in San Francisco in 2019, when he hit .330 for a breakout age-31 season-- and he hit .326 as he won a Silver Slugger award in ‘20.

And he’s still here, at age 35, quietly carrying a .341 average with four doubles as one of the most consistent elements of a Twins lineup that has already been much more banged-up than they could have hoped.