You might have seen Byron Buxton’s spectacular catch on the warning track in Denver on Saturday night, a snag he made flat on his back, and only after the ball bounded on his legs and stomach before he secured it.
“It’s what, 425 feet, maybe even more than that, from where we’re sitting? So I couldn’t really see much,” Baldelli said of his view of the extra-deep center-field fence at Coors Field. “The players look like little specks, tiny little people out there, they’re so far away. It was probably a good play.”
It was, and it was one more entry into the Twins’ semiannual amazement at the unique baseball stage that is Coors Field. There is the mile-high altitude, the largest outfield in the game and the extra offense that those two factors produce.
“You have to run a long way to catch a lot of the balls hit here,” Baldelli said. “[Harrison] Bader probably ran, I don’t know, a couple miles out there during the series because he’s got to cover such a big [left-center] gap as well.”
Castro played right field Friday and left field Sunday and said all the open spaces out there — the foul pole is 347 feet away in left field, 350 feet in right, and straightaway center is a largest-in-baseball 415 feet away — surprised him.