The switch-hitting Brooks Lee has generally been more consistent from the left side of the plate than the right during his minor league career.

So, the results since being called up to the Minnesota Twins have been a little surprising.

The rookie infielder entered Saturday’s game hitting .209 as a left-handed hitter.

“Just struggled a little bit,” Lee said. “I’ve been getting a lot of stuff on the outer half of the plate, so I think I was trying to go get it a bunch of the time.”

He’s trying to make an effort now to wait for his pitch and attack. The early returns are positive. Lee delivered a pair of RBI singles — the first coming while hitting from the left side — in Minnesota’s 6-2 win Saturday over the White Sox, including a two-out single in the eighth to effectively put the game on ice.

“I definitely feel better. Right hand has been better since I’ve been up,” Lee said. “But yeah, just trying to get the left hand going and I felt better in that at-bat.”

Lee cooled a bit after his blistering start with the Twins when he was called up in early July. But manager Rocco Baldelli said the 23-year-old has “done everything that we can ask him to do to come in and help stabilize our team.”

“We’re also having a young guy come in not to play on occasion or to match up. We’ve basically played him every single day because we’ve needed to play him every single day,” Baldelli said. “He’s handled it well. He’s done a really nice job defensively. I think he’s learning a lot about major league pitching and how he’s going to be attacked on the offensive side.”

Working in Lee’s favor, per Baldelli, is that he’s a perceptive player with a “really good mind.” Baldelli sees Lee figure things out from pitch to pitch and at-bat to at-bat. But adjusting at the plate in your first looks at major league pitchers is a stiff test for any player.

“It’s much more challenging than anything he’s ever seen. It’s going to take some amount of time for him to get where he needs to be, to see how he’s going to be pitched, to understand what he’s going to do about it and the changes he’s going to make,” Baldelli said. “I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen from him overall. He’s handled it all very well. Doesn’t mean it’s not a challenge, but he’s handled it all the way that we want.”

Baldelli was asked if being a switch hitter makes the transition for Lee more difficult. Baldelli believes the opposite is true.

“They have it easier than anybody else. I believe that. I do. To keep two swings straight, is that more work sometimes? Yes. Can you lose one? Yeah. There are parts of that that are more strenuous, maybe. I don’t know the best way to say it.,” Baldelli said. “You’re facing the better matchup every single at-bat. You are going to be put in better positions to succeed if you’re a good switch-hitter. I think he’s a good switch-hitter. So I think this will be good for him. It’s going to be an advantage for him going forward. I don’t think of it as it makes their life more difficult for the switch-hitters than for anybody else. I kind of look at it, over time, the other way.”

Family trip…for some

The Twins’ trip to Chicago to face the Cubs starting Monday marks the annual family trip for the team.

Baldelli noted the manager’s family “sometimes” takes part in the trip. That will not be the case for his crew this time around. Baldelli has three young children, the oldest of which just turned 3 last month.

“We discussed it thoroughly. We almost pulled the trigger on it, too,” Baldelli said. “But it would’ve been an immense amount of work — almost to like prove that we could do it. That would’ve been the whole trip. The whole trip would’ve been 72 hours of proving to ourselves that we could pull this off, and that’s it.”

Baldelli surmised that neither he nor his wife would’ve slept for three days.

“It would’ve been a battle,” he joked.

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