Sonny Gray, Carlos Correa concocted a pickoff plan, and it worked like a charm vs. Rays

Sonny Gray stopped by Carlos Correa's locker shortly before heading outside to warm up Monday with an idea: Let's pick someone off tonight.

That they actually pulled it off is a reflection, Correa said, of how the veteran righthander likes to ready himself for his starts.

"It only happens with Sonny," Correa said a day later. "He likes to be really prepared. He gathers a lot of information."

In this case, Gray said: "We actually talked about it in the [scouting] meeting before the game, and then I went and talked to Carlos. We know [Tampa Bay] likes to run. We know it's a team that likes to steal third base. I mean, that's a fact."

Gray is right — included among the Rays' American League-leading 154 stolen bases are 27 steals of third, second behind Oakland's 29. Five of them belong to Jose Siri, who found himself on second base in the third inning after driving Randy Arozarena home for the game's second run.

"Right guy, right time," Gray said of the situation, in which he gave Correa a sign that he was going to try a pickoff move. "I waited a couple seconds, then turned. And when I saw Carlos at the bag and saw how far off it [Siri] was, I was like: 'We got it. We got it!' And sure enough."

Perhaps most amazing about the play, and Gray's readiness for it: It was the 11th pickoff, and third this season, of Gray's 276-game major league career — but the first time he has nabbed a runner at second base. "I'm glad to be part of the first one," Correa said with a smile.

Rookie Edouard Julien batted leadoff for the Twins as usual Tuesday night — he hasn't started in any other spot in the order since Aug. 20 — and served as the designated hitter, hitting a third-inning home run. Trotting around the bases hasn't been a problem for the rookie, but running full speed has been.

Julien suffered a minor hamstring strain in mid-August but has sat out only two games since then. The injury has been evident a few times on the bases, but Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said he has no plans at the moment to bench his leadoff hitter.

"It's a young player trying to manage and figure out how to actually play [when he's] not at 100 percent. He probably wasn't close to 100 percent for a while," Baldelli said. "He's getting better. I wouldn't play him in the field if he couldn't move."

Indeed, Julien has played first or second base three times in the past week, and a dozen times since he first felt the injury.

"It's funny — he moves in the field like a guy who can play second base," Baldelli said. "And when you put him on base, he's not really sure how to handle it and run the bases smoothly and still make it to the next base."

Julien cannot go into an all-out sprint, the manager said, but "he can probably run a little better than he has. He needs to figure that out. … He's running [as if he's] thinking, 'Don't get hurt.' But he's making the plays, so it's [a matter of] finding the middle ground."

Jair Camargo tripled and scored in the second inning, then reached on an error, stole second a scored again in the fourth inning as the St. Paul Saints defeated the Iowa Cubs in the opener of a six-game series in at Principal Field in Des Moines. Trevor Larnach went 2-for-4 and scored a run.

* Jorge Polanco was planning to fly home from the Dominican Republic, where he has been with family mourning the death of his brother-in-law, on Tuesday. "He will be active soon," Baldelli said of Polanco, who was put on the bereavement list Sunday. "I don't know when that's going to be. I can't tell you that's definitely [Wednesday]. I think it will be."

* Nick Gordon will depart for Des Moines on Wednesday and begin a rehab assignment with Class AAA St. Paul. Gordon, who hasn't played since fouling a ball off his leg and suffering a fractured shin May 17, hopes to be available before season's end.

* Righthander Brock Stewart threw a 25-pitch simulated inning Monday, Baldelli said, and it went well. Stewart, out since June 25 because of an elbow strain, could begin a rehab assignment in the next few days.