Andrew Benintendi makes himself at home in Minnesota, leads Kansas City Royals offense
It wasn’t even a full week ago that Kansas City Royals left fielder Andrew Benintendi characterized his season as “frustrating” because injuries kept him from sustaining success at the plate.
Those fits and starts have provided glimpses throughout the season of the dynamic offensive presence the left-handed hitting Benintendi can bring to the Royals’ lineup.
Friday night, Benintendi unleashed an offensive barrage that included four hits, three runs scored and two home runs, including an 11th-inning homer that provided the margin of victory in a 6-4 win over the Minnesota Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis.
That’s got to ease some of that frustration and change his mind. Right?
“Yeah, for now,” said Benintendi, who has 15 home runs this season. “I’ve just got to keep going. When you’re going bad, it’s never as bad [as you think] and it’s never as good. I’m just trying to stay even keeled and do the same thing every single day, keep working and trying to make the swing better.”
It’s always seems to go pretty good for Benintendi in Minneapolis. In seven games at Target Field this season, Benintendi has gone 12-for-24 (.500) with four home runs and nine RBIs.
In 16 career games at Target Field, the former first-round draft pick who debuted with the Boston Red Sox has batted .382 with three doubles, seven home runs and 17 RBIs.
Friday night, Benintendi had a hand in all six of his team’s runs. He hit a three-run first-inning home run. He scored from first base on Michael A. Taylor’s fourth-inning double to left-center field. Then he hit a two-run home run in the top of the 11th inning that put the Royals in position to secure the win.
“He just gets into a great rhythm,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “He’s not trying to do too much. … More importantly, when he’s healthy he has been going really strong. He has had a really good year, but there have been some different unfortunate setbacks, physically, that have kind of got him off track. But when he’s been rolling, it has been one good at-bat after another.”
This season, his first with KC, Benintendi has slashed .263/.308/.430 in 113 games. He has missed 18 games with a broken rib in June that came on the heels of his best month of the season, and shoulder injury also hindered him in August.
Friday, Benintendi’s first homer went 382 feet to right field. His second went 379 feet to left-center field. Between those two blasts, he singled to center field and to right field as he sprayed the ball all around the ballpark.
“I think the oppo swing with power is the one that tells you he’s right,” Matheny said. “I think that’s what he has been searching for ever since the beginning of spring training. He came in with a plan. He knew what he wanted to feel. … He and Terry [Bradshaw] and John [Mabry] have done a great job of continuing to work until he got to that feel. When he’s driving it that way, not many people in the league do that.”
In his last seven games, Benintendi has slashed .370/.433/.778 with three home runs and 12 RBIs.
Benintendi has also robbed a home run at the wall in the ninth-inning of a one-run game in Baltimore on Monday, and he threw out a runner at the plate to help preserve a shutout in the first inning on Thursday night.
Benintendi has also delivered multiple clutch hits this week. He drove in the winning run in Monday’s game, and Friday’s 11th-inning homer marked his second career go-ahead home run in extra innings. The other came as a member of the Red Sox on May 8, 2019 in Baltimore.
In the 11th inning on Friday, Benintendi took advantage of a first-pitch changeup from Juan Minaya and smashed it.
“I know he had been burying his changeup down and keeping it down,” Benintendi said. “I was just looking for something up, belt high or a little higher. When he threw it, I saw it pretty good and it was up as well so I tried to stay inside it and put a good swing on it.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 1:49 AM.
