Helman hustled for his first hit -- which is totally fitting for him

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ST. PETERSBURG -- Naturally, the guy who carved out a Minor League career by adding 20-homer power to his skill set and sustained three hamstring strains in the last two years notched his first big league hit on an infield single -- because once the ball comes off the bat, Michael Helman can never stop himself from taking off like a rocket.

“I try to tell myself, like, ‘All right, if I hit a routine ground ball to an infielder, take [it] nice and easy [to] first base,’” Helman said. “But I don't have that in me. I still find myself sprinting to first base every time. It's one of those things where I can live with getting hurt if I'm playing the game 100 percent, rather than dogging something and injuring myself and I just have to live with that.”

That’s the kind of mindset that helps a guy overcome Minor League setbacks and finally get his first MLB callup -- and notch his first hit -- at age 28.

“I've never looked at myself as the most talented guy on the field, but I'm going to play the game hard and try to play the game right and play it the right way,” Helman said.

The key to Helman getting to this stage of his career at all was in how he added power to what had originally been a contact-oriented game with very little slugging potential -- and only doing so three years after he was selected in the 11th round of the 2018 MLB Draft out of Texas A&M University.

Helman had a very flat swing when he was drafted, he said, having hit just six homers in 62 games in his junior season for the Aggies after transferring from community college, then hitting seven homers in his first 121 games as a professional before the Minor Leagues shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coming out of the break, Helman was essentially a new man -- and he credits it all to a change he made to his batting stance in ‘21, when he narrowed the space between his legs and introduced more of a vertical bat path to his swing.

He makes it sound so simple -- but that’s all it took, evidently.

“I think [the Twins] always knew that I kind of had it in me,” Helman said. “But the pandemic break was a weird time, so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what I was doing exactly. [It] just started clicking in '21.”

It didn’t click immediately, though. Helman tried to implement the swing change as the baseball world regrouped from the pandemic, but he found himself hitting .185/.286/.356 at the end of June for High-A Cedar Rapids -- albeit with six homers in the first 44 games of the season.

It took hitting coach (now-Minor League hitting coordinator) Bryce Berg telling Helman to stick it out through that adjustment period -- and finally, things came together.

“He said, ‘Dude, just stick with it for a while. It might be rough, but it'll come along,’” Helman said. “And I stuck with it, and I started hitting some more homers.”

He hit 19 homers that season, then followed it with a 20-40 season (20 homers, 40 stolen bases) combined at Double-A Wichita and Triple-A St. Paul in ‘22 that further locked in his progress and perhaps put him on the Major League radar entering Spring Training ‘23 -- but that’s when the rash of injuries hit him, including three left hamstring strains and a dislocated left shoulder.

That’s why it’s taken him so long to get here -- but when he’s been healthy, the swing change has stuck. And now, that’s a big league swing.

“I'm looking for better pitches that I can do damage on and getting my best swing off when I do get those pitches,” Helman said.