Carlos Correa's clutch hitting sends Twins to second win in a row over Yankees

NEW YORK — Yankees fans might want to try something different, like a polite hi-howya-doing when Carlos Correa comes to bat. Because this Bronx cheer stuff, the 100-decibel booing that's the soundtrack to his every at-bat?

"It's gasoline in [my] Ferrari," Correa said with a grin. "I love it."

The Twins' expensive sports car was worth every penny Friday night, driving his team to its first back-to-back victories in the Bronx in a decade. He homered off Nestor Cortes to cut New York's early lead in half, then doubled into the right-field corner off sinkerball specialist Clay Holmes in the eighth, helping the Twins become the second AL team to reach 10 victories with a 4-3 victory over the Yankees.

"That's a ridiculously impressive at-bat," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Correa's game-winner. "To hit a ball like that, against the guy he's facing, and where he was in the count — just incredibly impressive."

Yeah, not so much to the announced 41,039 in the stands who made it their personal mission to remind Correa how much they hate him for the Astros' 2017 sign-stealing scandal. The boos were loud during pregame introductions, and reached a zenith as he rounded the bases after his home run landed in the third row.

But with the Twins trailing 3-2 and Michael A. Taylor and Byron Buxton on base against Holmes, the animosity was put on hold while target and tormentors focused on the game's biggest at-bat.

Correa quickly fell behind 1-2 in the count, first watching a sinker stay high but catch the zone, then swinging over a pitch that dropped low and in.

"There are some sinkers that don't move much, and some sinkers that just look like bowling balls," they drop so much, Correa said. The strikes "moved so much. I think he has no control over how much it's going to move, he just throws it and lets the ball do its thing. Thankfully, he threw me a good one to hit and I was able to shoot it the other way."

Suddenly, there was no booing. Instead, the cheering from the Twins dugout was audible above the groans of fans, who had to assume from the first inning that the Yankees couldn't lose.

That's because, one day after Minnesota's historic nine-run first inning, the Yankees claimed some revenge, however brief, against Twins fill-in starter Louie Varland.

Anthony Volpe led off with his first career home run, driving Varland's second pitch into the left field seats. And Varland's third pitch landed in the right-field stands, courtesy of Aaron Judge.

"After those two batters, I was definitely mad. I wasn't expecting them to come out guns blazing like that," said Varland, who because of canceled and delayed flights didn't arrive at the Twins' hotel until shortly before noon. "I don't think I've heard a stadium that loud."

He quieted them by retiring the side with a pair of strikeouts, then holding the Yankees scoreless for the next four innings. He slipped up when Giancarlo Stanton lined another solo homer just inside the left-field foul pole, but finished six innings with no further damage, and a career-high eight strikeouts. Emilio Pagán, Jorge López and Jhoan Duran finished off the Yankees, and the Twins had their first back-to-back wins in a series here since July 13-14, 2013.

"This was a tremendous character win for our team. We come in here and the first two hitters of the game had some good swings and the crowd gets loud," Baldelli said. "And Louie, he was unaffected by any of it."