Josh Willingham hits home run into third deck at Target Field (video)
By Mike Marteny
The Kansas City Royals plucked Josh Willingham away from the Minnesota Twins on August 11th for minor league pitcher Justin Adam after Willingham cleared waivers.
Little more than a week later, Willingham made his return to Target Field. This was the result:
Looks like the fans up there were not expecting to see a ball.
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Willingham becomes one of the first players to hit a ball into the third deck of Target Field during a game. Sure, we all saw the shot that Giancarlo Stanton hit during the Home Run Derby that almost left the stadium all together, but that was with a pitcher intentionally throwing meatballs.
As far as we know, Twins pitcher Brian Duensing was not on Sunday. At least not intentionally.
ESPN Home Run tracker put the estimated distance on Willingham’s home run at 416 feet. According to this same tool, Willingham hit one 446 feet for his first home run of the year, which was also at Target Field. That one was more toward center field, so he didn’t make it into the third deck.
For Target Field not being a hitters park, we have certainly seen some long home runs there. Jim Thome hit is over the seats to the flagpoles in left field at least once. We saw Joey Gallo hit moon shots during batting practice for the Futures Game.
Willingham is 3-9 with a homer, two doubles, and five RBI in his return to Target Field so far. The wraparound series concludes tonight at 8:10pm eastern time.