Plouffe swinging hot bat in September

OAKLAND -- The Twins have seen a bump in production from Trevor Plouffe of late. The third baseman has recorded a hit in 12 of 17 September games and reached base safely in eight of his past 17 plate appearances entering Thursday's action.

Plouffe has eight multihit games in September, and he's been held hitless in just seven of 30 games since Aug. 18. His 24 hits in this final month of the regular season rank second in the American League behind Jose Altuve, who had 30.

"He's covering the field," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "You see him shooting balls to right field and pulling the balls he's supposed to. Confidence snowballs, and you feel confident and the ball looks bigger than it normally does, and right now, it looks like he's seeing it pretty well."