Inside The Twins

Amid major struggles, Twins' Mickey Gasper delivers huge swing, great quote

Gasper has had a tough time producing at the big-league level, but he played hero on Tuesday.
Will Ragatz|
Mickey Gasper delivered the highlight of his big-league career on Tuesday.
Mickey Gasper delivered the highlight of his big-league career on Tuesday. | Twins.TV

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Minnesota Twins

Even in a lost season for a team fading into irrelevance, baseball can provide some pretty awesome moments. The Twins' comeback road win over a great Blue Jays team on Tuesday night featured a couple of those.

Matt Wallner's three-run homer in the ninth inning — his fourth homer in his last three games — put the Twins over the top in a 7-5 win. But earlier in that inning, it was a much more unlikely hero who delivered the biggest swing of an MLB career that has struggled to get off the ground thus far. Mickey Gasper led off the inning by crushing a Jeff Hoffman fastball for his first career home run, tying the game at 4 in the process.

Coming through in that spot had to feel incredible for Gasper, who had already singled twice earlier in the game. This is a guy who came into Tuesday with seven hits in 79 MLB at-bats between his time with the Red Sox last year and multiple stints on the Twins' roster in 2025. That's a .089 batting average.

Gasper raked in the upper minor leagues in Boston's system last year (.970 OPS), but went 0 for 18 in his first taste of the big leagues. This year, he's been similarly outstanding for Triple-A St. Paul (.915 OPS) but has really struggled to come up with any sort of production at the plate when he's been with the Twins. Within that context, you can only imagine how cathartic it must've been for Gasper to hit his first home run in his 100th MLB plate appearance, after more than 450 minor league games.

And yet, watching him round the bases, he looked like a guy who has come up with big hits like that one many times in the big leagues. Afterwards, Twins sideline reporter Audra Martin asked him about his stoic response in that moment, which led to a great quote from the 29-year-old New Hampshire native.

"My dad always told me to act like you've done it before," Gasper said. "So even though it was my first one... Mickey Mantle puts his head down and runs around the bases, Mickey Gasper should too."

Even after a long overdue breakout game, Gasper is still hitting just .154 for the Twins this season, with a .492 OPS in 77 plate appearances. But his OPS rose over 100 points on Tuesday, and maybe it'll be the kind of performance that helps him start to find a rhythm.

Even if that doesn't happen, this was a moment Gasper will never forget.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI, who also covers the Twins, Timberwolves, Gophers, and other Minnesota teams. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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