Mauer has some wheels doesn’t he?

With two runners on base, Mauer timed a 3-2 pitch from the Angels’ ace setup man Scot Shields and drove it off the top of the center-field wall - perhaps a foot from clearing the fence, but also roughly a foot out of Gary Matthews’ desperate reach.

“I thought it was out of the ballpark, and (Matthews) still almost caught it. He’s a highlight film out there,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “… He almost caught it - incredible.”

“That’s about all I got. I always seem to find the deepest part of the park when I hit balls like that,” said Mauer, who was robbed of a hit in the fourth inning when Matthews made a full-speed catch of a long line drive. “The way it bounced, I thought I had a chance to make it all the way.”

He did, but it wasn’t easy. “I was afraid of falling over” as he hustled the final 90 feet, he joked. “It’s a long way around there.”