CHICAGO -- Kody Clemens had already seen two sweepers by the time Caleb Thielbar went back to the pitch for a third straight time.
The first one caught enough of the inner half for Clemens to foul it back. The second spun just off the plate, and Clemens watched it go by.
The third stayed over the middle. This time, Clemens did not miss.
He lifted the hanging sweeper high into the right-field bleachers for his second home run of the afternoon, a Statcast-projected 391-foot drive that cut the Twins’ deficit to three in an eventual 6-2 loss to the Cubs on Saturday at Wrigley Field.
But on an afternoon when Minnesota managed little else, Clemens supplied every run and offered another reminder of why his bat has become so important to this lineup.
“In this game, you’ve just got to take advantage of the ones that are in the heart of the plate or you’re going to get out,” Clemens said. “Thankfully, I put a good swing on it there and, like I said, was lucky enough to get one down the middle.”
The blast left his bat at 102.7 mph with a 37-degree launch angle, soaring much higher than his first homer of the day.
That one came in the second inning against Cubs starter Matthew Boyd, who had been largely untouchable otherwise. With two outs and the Twins trailing by one, Clemens turned on a 2-2 four-seam fastball over the middle and lined it toward right field.
The ball left his bat at 106 mph and barely cleared the wall, tying the game at 1.
It was one of only five hits Minnesota recorded through the first eight innings against Boyd and the Cubs’ bullpen.
“I thought he executed pretty well against all of us, honestly,” Clemens said of Boyd. “I was just lucky enough to get one over the plate and got a good swing off it.”
Clemens’ second homer marked the third multihomer game of his career and his second this season, following another two-homer performance June 4 against the Royals.
Both of Saturday’s homers came against left-handed pitching, another encouraging development for a hitter who was not consistently starting against lefties early in the season.
Manager Derek Shelton said Clemens spent time before the game working with assistant hitting coach Rayden Sierra after feeling slightly out of sync over the previous few days. Clemens’ first homer of the game snapped a previous 0-for-19 skid at the plate.
“He made a nice adjustment,” Shelton said. “I know he did some work with Rayden today, and we saw it. Going into the break, he had run pretty hard. It looked like he kind of wore down a little bit. But to be able to see him come out today and have good swings, I think was really encouraging.”
Clemens felt the same thing.
“The past two days have been kind of a grind,” Clemens said. “I was just trying to get back to a good spot and make sure my mechanics were back to where they were. I did some work looking at some video and stuff like that today just to make sure I was where I was. Made a few adjustments with Ray, and it was good.”
The adjustments showed immediately.
Clemens has seen fastballs on 56 percent of his pitches this season, and he was ready when Boyd challenged him with one in the second. Five innings later, he adjusted again when Thielbar attacked him with three consecutive sweepers.
That ability to handle different pitch types, and pitchers from either side, has made Clemens one of Minnesota’s most dependable offensive pieces.
“Kody’s everything to the offense,” Brooks Lee said. “He’s hitting lefties, he’s hitting righties. He does a great job getting the right pitch to hit, and he doesn’t miss. It’s pretty cool to see.”
The Twins needed more of that Saturday.
Minnesota mounted one final threat in the ninth, putting its first two hitters aboard before a baserunning miscue on Lee’s single resulted in two outs and effectively extinguished the rally.
The Twins fell back below .500 at 49-50, one day after reaching the mark for the first time since April 22.
For most of the lineup, it was a quiet afternoon.
For Clemens, it was evidence that a few hours of video work, a handful of mechanical adjustments and two hittable pitches could provide something worth carrying into Sunday and potentially the rest of the season.
“Yesterday, he didn’t have his best game,” Lee said. “It looked like he felt a lot better today, and I feel like he’s just going to continue to make adjustments and be really good for us.”