Multiple Minnesota Twins Players Rattled After Near Death Experience

The Minnesota Twins played their seventh (technically sixth) spring training game of the 2025 season Friday, an afternoon showdown at their home Hammond Stadium vs the Baltimore Orioles on what feels like just a little bit brighter and sunnier day of baseball for a few Twins players.

Minnesota enters this spring with all sorts of question marks, at all levels of the organization, including ownership. Nonetheless, the Twins have Pablo Lopez leading the rotation, with Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton healthy behind him, this team stands as good a chance of any in a very mediocre AL Central.

But these last couple days — with a month still remaining for the Twins down in Fort Myers — I’m guessing RHP Jorge Alcala, 2B Eddie Julien and OF Matt Wallner just feel lucky to be alive and playing baseball on a beatiful, well-manicured MLB-ready diamond…

Minnesota Twins players escape devastating crash en route to spring training game

This, after the three of them narrowly escaped a head on collision with an out of control vehicle that was heading in the opposite direction on the busy road they were driving on Thursday, as they made their way to Hammond Stadium for a game they ended up losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates. None of those three were feeling like losers after the game, though.

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The story: Julien was in the passenger’s seat of Wallner’s vehicle and didn’t see the oncoming car hit the median between them and literally fly over the top of them, as they were driving by in the opposite direction. Alcala was riding in the vehicle directly ahead of Wallner’s.

Reliever Jorge Alcala was in the lead car and outfielder Matt Wallner and infielder Edouard Julien were driving together behind him when, a speeding vehicle, coming from the opposite direction, drove through a grass median and went flying through the air, barely missing both cars, the players said.

Julien said he was alerted to the near-miss when Wallner, who was at the wheel of their car, began to scream obscenities.…Alcala was a passenger in a vehicle driven by his brother, Juan. He said his brother was driving approximately 40 mph when the other vehicle nearly hit them.

Dan Hayes – The Athletic

The two-car convoy of Minnesota Twins players pulled over after the incident and took a moment to comprehend what had just happened, before continuing on their way to team facilities. Julien’s eyewitness account gives the most detail about what sounds like a very real, near-death experience.

Julien, Alcala recount near tragic accident

Had that 1000 pound, out of control gas-filled missile not hit the median the exact way it did, who knows if any of the three Twins involved would have lived to tell reporters about it later that day.

Julien: ““I’ve never heard Wallner scared like that,” Julien said. “I look up, and I just see a car that’s in a ditch, like in the middle of the road, just going through bushes and going through trees, smaller trees. And all of a sudden, (the car) just jumps up, like six feet in the air.” [The other car] almost collided with Alcala, and he almost collided with us at the same time. It was kind of crazy. I saw under the car, too, that’s how far up he was.”

Alcala: “I saw everything. It flew over us. It was something really scary, a little traumatizing. But thanks to God. Every time I leave my home, I thank God for another day.”

The Athletic

While it’s true that nobody really cares about the results of spring training games, I know three players at Hammond Stadium yesterday who cared a little bit less about their 12-2 loss vs the Pirates than the rest of their teammates.

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On Friday vs the Orioles, the Minnesota Twins seemed to be bouncing back from an overall tough Thursday, until an eight-run top of the 9th inning put Baltimore on top of the Twins 13-10. Opening Day is in St. Louis vs the Cardinals on March 27.