Baseball's worst team with the bases loaded, and the Twins' worst hitter with runners in scoring position, confronted their weaknesses head-on Thursday.
Twins beat Padres 5-3 behind Carlos Correa's tie-breaking double in seventh inning
The Padres offered couple of gifts with their pitching and defense, and Correa said he like a big hit was coming when he stepped up to bat with the score tied in the seventh inning.
May 12, 2023 at 11:12AM
Well, sort of. But it worked out well for them.
Joey Gallo drew a bases-loaded walk in the second inning, Max Kepler hit a potential double-play grounder that the Padres couldn't quite turn in the seventh, and the Twins rode that, um, clutch hitting to a 5-3 victory at Target Field.
Carlos Correa, who entered the series 1-for-14 at home this season in prime scoring chances, doubled home two runs to break a 3-3 tie, his second day with an actual clutch hit, and the Twins won an interleague series for the first time in three chances.
"We got some runners on, and you need that hit that breaks things open. Correa had that for us today. That's just a big moment," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "It goes from a losing effort to a winning effort because we fight, we get some baserunners on, have good at-bats. But it does take that swing sometimes. And it's just a good swing."
More of that to come, Correa promised.
"I felt like a hit like that was coming," he said of his 102.5-mph smash down the left-field line. "I've been feeling pretty good for the last week, hitting some balls hard. Eventually things are going to come, so I'll just keep trusting the process, keep working in the cage."
Kyle Farmer, in his second game back after being beaned in the mouth last month, was hit on the wrist by a Yu Darvish pitch in the second inning, a play that loaded the bases for Gallo, whose walk forced in the Twins' first run. Farmer responded two innings later with a solo home run off Darvish, the Padres starter, a hit that put to rest any lingering questions about his nerve after such a frightening injury.
"I've talked to a lot of people about it, especially my dad. He told me, 'You were put on this Earth to play baseball. You've just got to do your thing,'" Farmer said. "First [homer] in awhile. It felt good."
Bailey Ober pitched six reasonably strong innings, an outing that would have been even better had he not been ambushed by the Padres lineup to open three innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the game with a home run into the left-field seats; Manny Machado and Juan Soto hit back-to-back doubles to start the fourth inning; and Rougned Odor, hitting .103 at the time, opened the fifth by blasting his first home run of the season over the right-field wall.
"I was proud of myself. I didn't have my best stuff today, but I was able to grind it out and get ahead of guys and throw strikes," said Ober, who allowed more runs in his fourth start of the year than in his first three combined (two). "I didn't have my best breaking balls today, slider or curve. The fastball kept me alive. I was able to locate it at the top of the zone and get swings and misses on it," 16 in all.
It worked. Except for those inning-opening lightning strikes, San Diego went 2-for-20 against Ober, who didn't walk a batter and struck out six. Emilio Pagán, Brock Stewart and Jorge López pitched a scoreless inning apiece in relief, López ending a streak of three blown saves to earn his third save of the season.
The Twins trailed 3-2 entering the seventh, but with Darvish gone, they took advantage of relievers Brent Honeywell and Steven Wilson. Honeywell gave up a single to Gallo, hit Ryan Jeffers with a pitch and walked Byron Buxton to load the bases. That's normally a strong position for a pitcher, given the Twins entered the game with a mere four singles in 28 bases-loaded at-bats this year, a .143 average that ranks last in MLB.
Sure enough, it appeared that Kepler would end the inning with a sharp grounder to Bogaerts at short. But second baseman Odor's relay throw to first base pulled Jake Cronenworth off the bag, and Gallo scored the tying run. Kepler left the game after reaching, but Baldelli said it was a cramp, not an injury.
"I thought there was going to be a [double] play, but Kep, he can move," Correa said.
Correa then followed with his two-out double, scoring Jeffers from third and pinch runner Michael A. Taylor from first.
"His at-bats looked good yesterday, and he comes up with the big moment for us today. That won't be the last one that we see," Baldelli said of his shortstop, who heard a few boos over his .191 average after striking out in the fifth inning. "You don't know what's to come, but I wouldn't be surprised if this guy gets rolling and never looks back."
Gerrit Cole gave up his opt-out right on Monday and will remain with the New York Yankees under a contract that runs through 2028 rather than become a free agent.
