Carlos Correa tests positive for COVID as Twins lose series opener at Detroit 7-5

DETROIT — Monday's game wasn't the biggest L the Twins took in Detroit.

While the Twins were heading toward a 7-5 loss at Comerica Park, testing on Carlos Correa came back revealing the starting shortstop had contracted COVID-19. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli had held Correa out of the game because he felt sick, though Correa was present in the clubhouse ahead of the game.

"It was coming on yesterday a bit and only got worse from that," Baldelli said of Correa's symptoms. "… I think just resting and hydrating is probably the most important thing for him. ... He's up to date with everything that he needs to do on the medical side as far as vaccinations and everything, so there's hope that he'll be able to take it on and deal with it and come back fairly quickly."

Correa became the third Twins player currently on the COVID list, along with pitcher Joe Ryan and outfielder Gilberto Celestino, who tested positive last week. Ryan and Celestino are convalescing at home, though, while Correa will have to hunker down in his hotel room.

All have to be symptom-free and test negative on two consecutive days to return. But even then, it can take several more days to bring the players back up to game speed after so much time without much activity. That was true for Dylan Bundy and Luis Arraez, who tested positive along with Baldelli when the team was in Baltimore earlier this month. They all had to be medevacked back to Minneapolis since they couldn't fly home on the team charter or commercially.

Baldelli wasn't sure if the team was undergoing subsequent testing depending on Correa's close contacts, nor did he know how long Correa could stay stranded in Detroit. The team will fly to Toronto after Thursday's game for a weekend series, which is shaping up to be one with a depleted roster.

Not only will the Twins be without the injured players and others with COVID, there will also be a few who cannot travel to Canada because they are not vaccinated. Several taxi squad players are primed to take their places.

Without Correa, the team will look to Jorge Polanco and Nick Gordon as fill-ins at shortstop. First baseman Jose Miranda, who hit a home run but also made a costly throwing error Monday, said it will still be an adjustment to play without one of the team's leaders for an unknown amount of time.

"It's a big loss. He's one of the main pieces of the team," Miranda said. "But we've just got to keep going through this in the couple of days we're not going to have him here."

The Twins also didn't have Byron Buxton, the team's other main leader, for most of Monday's game, as he continues to play through a knee injury. Baldelli has fielded criticism for not pinch-hitting Buxton in late-game situations when he is on the bench. But the fact that he brought Buxton in as designated hitter for Ryan Jeffers with the team down two in the top of the ninth bodes well for the center fielder's injury progress.

"At the time when we were talking about those other games, we were just trying to get him to play in the games where he was scheduled to play in. That was more of a focus at that point," Baldelli said. "And it took a lot of effort on the medical side and by our medical group to get him ready to go for those games. And then on the days where he wasn't playing, we needed to use those days just to get him in position to play the days where he was playing."

Buxton struck out as the Twins failed to mount a comeback, despite home runs from Miranda, Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela, plus another run that scored on a fielding error. But Detroit never let the Twins' leads last. Bundy started and gave up nine hits and four runs in his six innings, one on a Derek Hill homer. But a tough seventh inning from reliever Joe Smith and late-inning throwing errors from Miranda and Urshela were the difference.

Monday's loss was even more disappointing for Bundy, considering the challenges the team is bound to face in Toronto without several key players.

"It seems like one a week now," Bundy said of players testing positive for COVID. "It's hard. We do our best to keep it out of here, I guess, or try to. But it's still around and affects the team.

"… Knowing that we are going to be down a few guys, that makes these four or five games [now] more important."