MINNEAPOLIS -- It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for Edouard Julien with the Twins. Despite a strong showing that landed him in the top 10 of AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023, he has bounced back and forth between the Twin Cities -- Minneapolis with the Twins, and St. Paul with the Triple-A Saints.
Now, after the Twins’ recent roster overhaul, the possibility of extended playing time is there, and on Thursday night against the Tigers, Julien played like he intends to take advantage of the opportunity.
Julien went 2-for-3 with his third home run of the season and handled a number of tricky plays defensively at first base in the Twins’ 4-3 loss in 11 innings.
In the third inning, he became the first lefty this year to hit a homer off AL Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal. Julien got ahead in the count 2-0, then jumped all over a 95.1 mph sinker that Skubal left up in the zone. The ball cleared the right-field stands and bounced around the plaza a Statcast-projected 410 feet away as Julien circled the bases.
“I know he’s got probably one of the best fastballs in the game and a good changeup, too,” Julien said. “For me, I was just going out there and trying to hit the sinker in or just react to a fastball and try to put a good swing on it.”
As for being the first lefty to go deep against Skubal this season, Julien said, “It’s pretty cool to hear that. He’s faced a lot of good lefties, too. I try not to think about all that stuff, but it’s always a good thing to know that I hit a homer off a guy that had the [AL pitching] Triple Crown last year.”
Julien’s other two at-bats weren’t as eventful, but they were still impressive. He lined a single to left field in the fourth and hit a hard line drive to left that was caught in the seventh inning.
“You’re looking for someone to kind of get you going and get the offense rolling against Skubal, and Ed got us there,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s waking everyone up. It was a great swing off him. And then he had another really good at-bat off him later on. And lines another one.”
Defensively, he was making just his 11th appearance at first base in a Major League game, but he looked like a veteran in the field. With two outs in the fifth, he made a nice diving stop on a hot smash to his right by Trey Sweeney. And in the sixth, he had to make an adjustment and stretch for a throw from Kody Funderburk, barely keeping his foot on the base to retire Kerry Carpenter.
Even a play that didn’t result in an out was a sign of Julien’s progress on defense. With two out in the 10th inning and Zach McKinstry on second base, Javier Báez hit a grounder deep in the shortstop hole. Ryan Fitzgerald made the play, but with all his momentum going away from first base, he didn’t get much on the throw.
Julien could have tried a long stretch to scoop the ball on the second hop, but if the ball had skipped past him, McKinstry would have scored the go-ahead run. Instead, Julien played it safe and came off the bag to get the ball, and Cole Sands retired Colt Keith on a fly ball to center to end the threat.
“I’m still learning. I like it over there,” Julien said of first base. “You have to slow the game down a little bit more than at second base. I’m learning every day, and [first-base/infield coach] Ramon [Borrego] is helping me a lot with that, and [Justin] Morneau, too. I have good people to ask questions or surround myself with.”
Those questions and the extra work he’s putting in with the coaching staff hasn’t gone unnoticed by his manager.
“You're seeing a little bit at a time from him on different types of plays,” Baldelli said. “Experience, it matters a lot. And it's picking it up one play at a time where you approach it differently today than maybe you would have approached it last week or last year. So I see him making those adjustments when he's swinging the bat like that and contributing on both sides, it's what you're looking for.”