Danny Valencia set to cool 'hot corner'

Danny Valencia spent part of his offseason working out with Alex Rodriguez. Now the Minnesota Twins third baseman hopes to play like him.
In the previous seven seasons, six different players have started at third base for the Twins on opening day. Barring injury or the unforeseen, Valencia will become the seventh opening day starter on April 1 in Toronto.

The 26-year-old said he hoped to end the trend of the Twins having turnover at the "hot corner" position.

"It's very important to me, and it's important for the team to have someone there," Valencia said. "I'd be happy to fill that role. Hopefully good things happen and we win."

Good things happened for Valencia, and the Twins won on Sunday. He went 1-for-2 with a first-inning double and run scored as the Twins defeated the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 in front of an announced, sellout crowd of 7,924 fans.

"It's a matter of time," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "The talent is there. Whether he was going to allow himself to do a few things and listen - it's all about learning. When he came up to the big leagues, he started listening and learning.

"That's what this game is all about. You go to the ballpark and try to learn something every day. You don't want to be content with being OK. You want to do higher things.

"He's done that."

Learning from Rodriguez and working out with him - both played at the University of Miami - helped, Valencia said.

"It was a good experience," he said. "It was very informative. It was fun, and it's nice to see a guy you grew up watching work hard."

Valencia hit .311 in 85 games last season after getting called up from Triple-A Rochester on June 3. He had 18 doubles, seven home runs, 40 RBI and two stolen bases. The batting average ranks ahead of Koskie for second place as best for a rookie hitter with a minimum of 300 at-bats. Only Tony Oliva fared better, hitting .323 in 1964.

"Wow," Valencia said. "That's nice to be mentioned with those guys. It was a great rookie year. I can't think of any way it could have been better unless we could have gotten deeper into the playoffs."

Valencia got an infield single in his first big-league game off a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher in Felix Hernandez on June 3. Valencia slugged his first major-league homer off another Cy Young winner, Zack Greinke, against the Royals on July 26 in Kansas City.

It was a grand slam.

"I got ahead in the count," Valencia said. "I got a fastball, and I was able to put a good piece of wood on it. I was pretty happy. At the time, I hadn't hit a home run the whole entire year. I kind of forgot how to run around the bases. It was a good feeling. I'm sure years from now I'll remember my first home run in the big leagues."

Gardenhire said Valencia has impressed him with his desire to learn.

"He's a very confident guy, probably overconfident," Gardenhire said. "There's nothing wrong with that as long as you continue to learn and listen and pay attention. Danny has done that. He has handled himself a lot better than most people would have expected. That says a lot about him."

It would say even more if Gardenhire writes Valencia's name in the lineup at third base when the calendar turns to 2012.

"I've said that about 10 times, and we'll wait and see," Gardenhire said of Valencia being a long-term solution. "That's why we drafted him. That's why we've tried to sell him as being our long-term solution at third base. He definitely has the ability to do that."



(new-press.com)