Week 14: Max Kepler

I live and work in the Twin Cities, and after the week we've had, I was clearly going to pick a Twin today. Max Kepler was a leading candidate obvious reasons:

Then, on Sunday, Kepler hit a grand slam to help in the Twins clobber the hateful Texas Rangers 15 to 5. It was the first Twins grand slam of the season and rookie Kepler's first in the big leagues. Kepler has a knack for making a big impression. His first major league home run was a walkoff dinger against the (also hateful) Boston Red Sox which led to this picture of Kepler with my other favorite Twins, Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Núñez and the dreamy Trevor Plouffe.

Here's some fun facts about Kepler interspersed among unrelated pictures of him.

Maximilian Kepler-Rozycki was born in Berlin where his parents were both dancers in the same ballet company. Although Kepler is often called German, his nationality is complicated as his mother Kathy Kepler, is from San Antonio, Texas, and his father, Marek Rozycki, is from Poland.

As a teenager in Germany, Kepler turned down lucrative opportunities to play both soccer and tennis to pursue a career in the great American pastime.

Kepler's career in the minor leagues was a bit of a roller coaster ride, but he had a strong year in 2015 earning the title of MVP in the Southern League.

"93 'Til Infinity" by Souls of Mischief is Max's walk-up song which is appropriate because, not only is it about 1993, it was released that year, the year Kepler was born (yikes).

Max Kepler, you have more than earned the title of my MLBoyfriend of the week. Well done!