Twins' Granite pinch runs, hits 1st career HR in same inning

Minnesota Twins rookie Zack Granite probably wasn't expecting to come up to the plate when his manager, Paul Molitor, told him to go run for Joe Mauer.

It seems like he was pretty quick to adapt to a surprise plate appearance, though.

Granite pulled off a very rare feat in baseball Saturday night. After entering the game as a pinch runner in the eighth, he quickly came around to score the first of eight Twins runs in the inning. But he wasn't close to done in the frame.

Thanks to the Twins' prolonged rally, the lineup cycled around and Granite's spot in the order came up again. With two men on, he laced his first career home run that put the Twins up 10-3 on the Detroit Tigers, and gave Granite the rare distinction of having homered while designated as a pinch runner.

"It was pretty cool," Granite told Michael Clair and Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. "Actually, the umpire said, 'I thought Joe Mauer was up.' And I joked back that I look a little different than him. So it was really cool. I wasn't expecting that."

According to Twins public relations director Dustin Morse, Granite is the first player to homer as a pinch runner since Boston's Darren Lewis did it on April 18, 2001.

Lewis was technically listed as a designated hitter at the time of his homer, though, having pinch ran for Red Sox DH, Manny Ramirez. By contrast, Granite ran for a player who had a defensive position, and therefore took his at-bat as a pinch runner rather than a DH - thereby putting him in even more rarefied and obscure baseball air.

According to Baseball-Reference, Cleveland's Pat McNulty in 1925 and the Reds' Johnny Temple in 1953 are the only other players since 1913 who hit home runs while taking an at-bat at the listed position of pinch runner.