Twins’ Larnach on his HR in Omaha: ‘I just remember time standing still’

Trevor Larnach has had mixed results playing primarily against right-handed pitching with the Minnesota Twins this season

SEATTLE — Minnesota’s annual visit to the Northwest for a series against the Mariners is like Old Home Week for the Twins’ Trevor Larnach.

After Saturday’s 5-1 victory over the M’s at T-Mobile Park, Larnach got together with former Oregon State teammates Michael Gretler and Jake Mulholland. After Sunday’s game, he will convene with ex-Beavers Jack Anderson and Kyle Nobach.

“Any time I am up here in this area of the country, it is pure love because of the guys I played with in Corvallis,” Larnach said before Saturday’s game. “We have unbreakable bonds.”

Minnesota entered Sunday play with a 46-37 record, seven games behind American League Central leader Cleveland just past the midway point of the regular season. That is a good deal of ground to make up, but the Twins are in strong position to gain a wild-card berth in the playoffs.

“We have had some hot streaks; we have had some cold streaks; there has been some a little bit in between,” Larnach said. “It’s a long season. You have to roll through it and stick with the process.”

Larnach’s individual season has gone in similar fashion. The 6-4, 225-pound southpaw swinger is batting .250 with seven home runs and 25 RBIs in 49 games. Larnach has been most effective hitting with runners in scoring position — .333 (13 for 39) with two doubles, three homers and 17 RBIs.

Of late, though, Lady Luck hasn’t been on his side. Too often, hard-hit balls have been right at defenders. Larnach has struck out 33 times in 175 plate appearances, a rate of 18.8 percent — better than the average at the major league level (20 percent). He is tied for 20th among MLB hitters in average exit velocity (92.4 mph).

“I feel like I am doing a lot of good things and not necessarily being rewarded for it,” said Larnach, who went 1 for 3 with a walk and a stolen base — the fourth of his MLB career — on Saturday. “There are a lot of balls that aren’t falling for me. I can’t count the number of games where I feel like I’ve had 100-plus (exit velo) balls that haven’t fallen. But that’s just part of the game.”

Larnach started the 2024 season on fire, batting .394 (13 for 33) with six multiple-hit games in April. Since then, it has been a struggle — .203 in May, .224 in June.

“I am doing nothing differently,” Larnach said with a shrug. “I have stayed the exact same with everything I have done in the weight room, in the cage, my mental approach. Just had a little less luck, honestly.”

Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli is playing Larnach almost strictly against right-handed pitching — Trevor is 2 for 8 against southpaws. I asked if it is harder to hit when he is not regularly in the lineup.

“There is an element of that,” Larnach said. “Everyone would want to play every day. That’s out of my control. I can’t do anything about that. I’m just doing everything I can with the hand I’m given.”

When Larnach plays, Baldelli uses him in a hitter’s spot in the lineup. He has batted leadoff 11 times, second 20 times, third seven times and cleanup four times. He has never batted lower than sixth.

Larnach has also been in various roles in the field — 16 times in left field, three times in right field, 29 as designated hitter.

There is a bit of similarity to his role as a freshman at Oregon State in 2016, when he suffered a stress fracture in a foot before the season and missed the first quarter of the campaign.

“I was DH-ing, spot starting and pinch-hitting,” Larnach said. “It was tough. But honestly, everything in my career from college on up has helped prepare me for what I see up here. It has been a weird path for me based on injuries. You can always take away good from stuff like that, though.”

The youngest of five children to Adam and Jeannine Lanarch growing up in Pleasant Hill, Calif., Trevor is well-known in Beaver lore as one of the stars of the team that claimed the championship in the 2018 College World Series.

Larnach was All-Pac-12 and a College World Series hero as a junior at Oregon State (courtesy OSU sports communications/Karl Maasdam)

It wasn’t success at first sight for Larnach, though. He got only 51 official at-bats his freshman season, hitting .157 with no homers in 28 games.

“I know there was some frustration with Trevor that year,” said Pat Casey, his coach at Oregon State. “He never got on track as an every-day guy. But I always believed in him. I thought he could put up similar numbers to (Michael) Conforto before he was through. That’s how much I felt he could hit.”

In the summer after his freshman year, Larnach played in the prestigious Cape Cod League.

“A great experience,” he said. “You see a lot of the best arms in the country in the Cape. I remember facing (Mariners ace) Logan Gilbert. There is no doubt it helped my development.”

Larnach was a different hitter when he returned as a sophomore. He batted .303 with three homers, 48 RBIs and a .403 on-base percentage in 60 games as the every-day right-fielder on an OSU team that entered the playoff as a national No. 1 seed. The Beavers were 56-4 before losing back-to-back games against LSU, eliminated one victory shy of reaching the finals in the 2017 College World Series.

“I always tell people, that year was actually our best team,” Larnach said. “Some pieces fell apart at the end. Little things can interrupt things. We lacked experience in the World Series. We used that 100 percent the following year.”

After another Cape Cod League stint that summer — hitting .308 in 27 games for Falmouth — Larnach exploded onto the national scene as a junior. He hit .348 with a .464 on-base percentage for the Beavers. He ripped 19 home runs with 76 RBIs.

“Trevor became one of the best hitters in the college game,” Casey said. “He could always hit, but he really worked at it. The guy was in the cage all the time. He got disciplined in the strike zone, which really helped him. He made himself a first-round pick.”

“I’ve always been the kind to just work my tail off,” Larnach said. “That stems from my dad. When I get held back from what I think I can accomplish, that pushes me to reach a goal, or strive for the next thing. At Oregon State, it was be healthy, stick in the lineup and prove myself.”

Larnach said there were several reasons for blossoming in 2018. He credits Tyler Graham — a star centerfielder on Oregon State’s 2006 national championship club — with guidance while working as director of player personnel for his alma mater.

“Tyler helped me physically, mentally, mechanically — anything you can think of from a baseball standpoint,” Larnach said. “To have mentorship like that accelerated my performance and my understanding of what I needed to do.

“Also, we had a lot of good players. I was batting in front of (Adley) Rutschman. (Opponents) had to pitch to me. They didn’t want to face him — a .400 hitter with power. They wanted to attack me. If Case had put me behind Rutschman, they’d have pitched around me.”

Larnach struck one of the biggest blows in Oregon State history in Game 2 of the CWS final three-game series against Arkansas in 2018. The Razorbacks won Game 1 and were on the precipice of wrapping up the title, leading 3-2 with OSU batting in the top of the ninth.

Down to their final strike, trailing Arkansas 3-2 in T9. After Cadyn Grenier’s game-tying RBI single, Larnach’s two-out, two-run homer over the right-field fence gave them a 5-3 lead. Left-handed closer Matt Cronin had two outs when OSU shortstop Cadyn Grenier launched the pop fly in foul territory down the first-base line that Beaver Nation will never forget.

The ball fell between three Arkansas defenders, giving Grenier new life. On the next pitch, he delivered a run-scoring, game-tying single to left field. That brought on Larnach, whose two-run homer to right gave the Beavers a 5-3 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The next day, Kevin Abel’s shutout powered them to a 5-0 win and their third national crown.

On his cell phone, Larnach has a photo of his teammates waiting to greet him at home plate after his monumental blast.

“That’s my biggest memory of that game,” he said. “Pure joy and love for those guys around me.

“I just remember time standing still. When (Grenier’s pop foul) landed and he got another chance at the plate, we had a fighting chance.”

Was it destiny that, after the reprieve, the Beavers would come back to win the Series?

“Almost,” he said, smiling. “Something like that, if you want to use that word. Honestly, I remember praying in the dugout, ‘Man, don’t let this be our last game.’ We had worked so damn hard — myself included.

“I knew after we won that game it was a wrap. I remember watching the postgame conference interview with Arkansas’ players. Their energy was so low. I felt like it was over.”

Casey still marvels at Larnach’s clutch bomb.

“Going left-on-left against Cronin throwing at 90-something mph, with all the drama prior to him getting up there. … an unforgettable moment,” he said.

Minnesota took Larnach with the 20th pick in the 2018 draft, earning him a $2.55 million signing bonus. He moved up the chain quickly, slowed only by the pandemic, which cancelled the 2020 minor league season. He got his first call-up to the Twins early in the ’21 campaign and wound up hitting .223 with seven homers in 79 games.

Larnach felt like he was making progress the next year when he was injured. He underwent bilateral surgical repair on a core muscle, which ended his season.

“I tried to play through the injury but finally had surgery,” Larnach said. “The following year, it was like missing that much time means you have to catch up. That’s where you get reminded of all the things you need to do to be successful.”

Larnach divided time between Minnesota and Triple-A St. Paul in 2023, hitting .213 with eight homers and 40 RBIs in 58 games with the Twins. This season he has been with the big-league club the entire time, but used almost entirely against right-handed pitching.

“It would be awesome if he had a chance to be in the lineup every day,” Casey said. “When you’re not, you’re bound to put a little added pressure on yourself. No question that he is a bonafide big-league hitter. He has a passion to hit, too. No hesitation. He’s all in. He is a better outfielder than people think, too, — very accurate with his arm.”

I asked Larnach about memories of his three years at Oregon State. He thinks about it for a few seconds, then smiles again.

“I have a lot of love for that place, dude,” he said. “That was the favorite time in my career as a baseball player, other than making my (MLB) debut, which was my childhood dream.

“College was so vital for me. You can’t replace those friendships, that love. Any time anyone on our teams there gets married, it’s a whole reunion. There’s no amount of money that can replace that.”

Two of those teammates — Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman and Cleveland left-fielder Steven Kwan — are finalists to be starters in the All-Star Game. Rutschman has already made one All-Star team. Kwan has two Gold Gloves.

“It’s amazing,” Larnach said. “I’m going to send those guys a text. To go from college to the All-Stars? I have nothing but love for those guys.”

Larnach is chagrined about the disintegration of the Pac-12.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “It’s sad. There’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

He laments what the transfer portal and the NIL have done to college athletics.

“I always thought when I was done playing baseball, maybe I’d get into college coaching,” he said. “I’m not so sure now. It’s such a business. It’s not the same as when we were there. We were going to be there unless you wanted to sacrifice a year to transfer. We had a group of guys who were there and stuck there. That’s what made it special.

“College sports are completely different than when I was there. But what are you going to do? Time moves on. You have to adapt and adjust.”

Larnach and long-time girlfriend Jessica Garcia — the former Oregon State softball player — are engaged and will be wed in mid-November in Dallas, where Trevor has made his offseason home the past few years.

Including the summer of 2018, Larnach, 27, is in his seventh season with the Twins organization. He is still three years away, however, from free agency.

“I’m year to year,” he said. “It’s all I know. The class I came up with, a lot of us are still here. I have friends in this organization. It feels great to be here. There are a lot of things out of my control from a playing aspect, but you work through it and prepare the best you can.”

Larnach is sure of one thing, though.

“I want to play as long as this game allows me to,” he said.

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