How Luis Arraez’s hitting advice helped Carlos Correa in a bounce-back season

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – After Carlos Correa recorded the first five-hit game of his career on June 12, and three more hits the next day, he said he needed to call former Twin Luis Arraez, crediting a chat the two players had during the offseason.

“He just asked me what I do when I’m hitting,” said Arraez, who played with Correa in 2022. “I said, ‘I just try to hit barrels and hit the ball the opposite way.’ That’s what he does. If I had Correa’s power, I would just try to hit the ball to the middle. That’s what he is doing right now.”

A bounce-back offensive season carried Correa to his third career All-Star team selection, his first since 2021. His .308 batting average ranks third in the American League while he’s seventh in on-base percentage (.377) and eighth in slugging percentage (.520).

“It’s amazing,” Arraez said. “He’s one of my favorites.”

Correa withdrew from playing in the All-Star Game on Sunday after he missed the past two games with plantar fasciitis in his right heel.

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Despite being removed from the All-Star Game roster, Correa still wanted to participate in the All-Star festivities. He sat in the front row at the beginning of Monday’s Home Run Derby — there were couches and chairs set up for players in front of the dugout — with his two sons, 2-year-old Kylo and 1-year-old Kenzo.

He was thrilled Kylo had a chance to meet Aaron Judge earlier in the day, though Kylo forgot the greeting he practiced at home, “Hi, Aaron Judge, my name is Kylo Correa. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“He was a little star-struck,” Correa said. “He saw him, and he was like, ‘Aaron Judge! Can I take a picture?’ He took a picture with him, and Aaron Judge held them both. It was a special moment.”

The Twins have a glass plaque between the manager’s office and the clubhouse at Target Field dedicated to former bench coach Mike Bell, who died in 2021 after battling kidney cancer at age 46.

Bell was a longtime farm director for the Arizona Diamondbacks before he spent the 2020 season as the Twins’ bench coach, and D-backs manager Torey Lovullo invited Bell’s younger brother, Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell, to serve on the National League’s coaching staff for the All-Star Game as a tribute.

“Mike’s going to live on here forever,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “As long as there are people that he touched, directly or even indirectly, still connected with the Twins, all his knowledge, all his love that he gave to us, that’s never going to go anywhere. We were obviously very lucky to be around Mike. That’ll never go away.”

Philadelphia Phillies lefthander Matt Strahm is the rare reliever who isn’t a closer nor primary setup man who made an All-Star roster. Strahm, 32, owns a 1.49 ERA in 36⅓ innings with 47 strikeouts.

Strahm, who grew up in West Fargo, N.D., grew up as a Twins fan and made a few trips to the Metrodome.

“We were probably three-and-a-half, four hours from the stadium,” he said. “My family, all summer, we would go to the lakes on the weekends. My parents worked Monday through Friday, so if we weren’t playing baseball, we were at the lake. I maybe went to five or six [games] growing up and went to one Vikings game.”

The Phillies visit Target Field next week and Strahm, North Dakota’s first MLB All-Star since Darin Erstad, expects a large cheering section.

“My cousin blocked off 50 tickets or something,” said Strahm, who hasn’t pitched at Target Field since 2022. “It’s always a big crowd.”

The Twins started the second day of the MLB draft, which covers rounds 3-10, by selecting four consecutive position players, including two catchers. Third-round pick Khadim Diaw, a catcher out of Loyola Marymount, was the first player of Senegalese descent taken in the draft’s history.

“We were a little surprised there were some more college bats laying around,” Twins scouting director Sean Johnson said.

Fifth-round pick Caden Kendle, an outfielder from UC Irvine, was a 10th-round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals last year who opted to return to college.