{"id":298921,"date":"2025-09-07T13:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T13:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/298921\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T13:50:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T13:50:19","slug":"overhang-hangover-target-fields-weirdest-quirk-strikes-again-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/298921\/","title":{"rendered":"Overhang Hangover: Target Field\u2019s Weirdest Quirk Strikes Again – Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tByron Buxton<\/a> tripled the other day. That\u2019s hardly an unusual feat. This one was his sixth of the year, and the 30th of his career. But there\u2019s something odd about the play. Can you spot it?\n<\/p>\n

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\n\tThis is no longer a Byron Buxton article. Sorry, Buck. This is a Brooks Baldwin<\/a> article. There\u2019s something about alliterative \u201cB\u2019s,\u201d I guess. I mean, look at him! Baldwin never even dares to approach the warning track; as if a curse will befall him and his family and his teammates if he touches the outer dirt. He even takes a few steps backwards after his initial attack in anticipation of a violent ricochet.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\"Screenshot(1).png.48d298c768221788927865f8e950fdc1.png\"\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe chyron obscures the ball\u2019s landing spot, but a violent ricochet that is not. Based on how the ball spins, I don\u2019t think it hit the wall first; it landed in the dirt, before back-spinning off the wall, finally registering to Baldwin that he\u2019s safe to retrieve the object.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\"Screenshot(2).png.93332437de218880082ca75112b384d5.png\"\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, Buxton is running like a maniac. It\u2019s just Baldwin\u2019s luck that Byron was the batter to smack this ball. Had basically any other Twin done it, they would have just safely strode into second, made some sort of celebratory hand signal to the dugout, and remained pleased with their improved OPS. Buxton, however, makes hay with his speed and decisive baserunning. He smelled a three-bagger. So he bolted as if this was \u201cThe Short Sprint\u201d (a re-imagining of Stephen King\u2019s “The Long Walk”).\n<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, even Buxton knows something is up. Look at this frame:\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\"Screenshot(3).png.70849178c815ffe8d1636d854e3005cf.png\"\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe wisely checks to see if the cutoff man offers a threat to his adventure to third base. He does not. The infield hasn\u2019t even received the ball yet. So he lets down his guard, unleashes an exaltation, and saunters into the base, perhaps a little confused that he didn\u2019t need to dirty his jersey in the process. This was likely the easiest triple of Buxton\u2019s career, and it didn\u2019t involve an odd bounce or a fielding mishap during a catch attempt.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThough we\u2019re most familiar with Baldwin as an infielder, he has years of experience in the outfield from his time at UNC-Wilmington and through the minor leagues. This isn\u2019t a case of a green youngster finding his footing at a new position; this is a man scared to death of Minnesota\u2019s right field.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s probably rational. We\u2019ve seen some strange outcomes from balls in play entangling with the overhang. And Baldwin had yet to field a flyball that encroached on right field\u2019s menacing overhang. I\u2019m convinced he made up his mind that any ball hit with authority over his head was the fielding equivalent of no man\u2019s land, and that he would keep his distance (and his dignity). It\u2019s just that this level of authority was that of a Lieutenant, not a Chief of Police.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m not sure everyone noticed exactly what happened here. I asked my baseball-watching girlfriend if something seemed odd and she said no. Cory Provus did: he read Baldwin\u2019s actions and the flight of the ball, and concluded that it was not only a threat to bludgeon the wall, but maybe even to land in the overhang. \u201cIn the air to right,\u201d he says casually. \u201cAnd deep,\u201d he adds with sudden raised tenor. \u201cBack it goes,\u201d the first line of his signature home run call. \u201cAnd that is in play and off the wall,\u201d uttered with confusion. He had been had, tricked by the behaviour of a fielder trying his best.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThis wasn\u2019t a disaster. It\u2019s not like the Miguel San\u00f3<\/a> walk-off against Detroit a few years ago in which multiple fielders committed atrocious mistakes while attempting to perform athletic feats at the highest level. Arguably, the outcome would have been the same had he tried to catch the ball and simply bungled it, something that even elite fielders sometimes do at the wall. Maybe Baldwin\u2019s only sin was that his conservatism looked aesthetically strange.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, and this is what happened two plays later.\n<\/p>\n

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\n\tBall don\u2019t lie?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Byron Buxton tripled the other day. That\u2019s hardly an unusual feat. This one was his sixth of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,1395,2223,822,60,3190,4,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-298921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brooks-baldwin","10":"tag-byron-buxton","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-twins","13":"tag-minnesotatwins","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115163340886105864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}