Twins’ Carlos Correa on 2022 season: ‘I have 43 games to make it a lot better’
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Since the Twins started playing, for all intents and purposes, .500 baseball, players and manager have insisted they’re a better team than the win-loss record would indicate. With the season winding down, they’re running out of chances to prove it.
“We’re due for a good run, a good streak, and there are, what, 44, 45 games left?” shortstop Carlos Correa said before Monday night’s series finale against Texas at Target Field. “It would be nice to do that down the stretch. But we’re definitely due for one of those stretches.”
It would help to get May-June Correa back.
During the Twins’ longest win streak, May 18-24, the two-time all-star hit .333 with four runs scored, four RBIs, four walks and just two strikeouts. In May and June, he hit .331 with eight home runs, 20 RBIs and a .395 on-base percentage in 57 games.
The Twins were 31-27 in May and June and were out of first place in the American League Central for only one day.
Since then, the team’s big offseason addition, and highest-paid player with a $35.1 million salary, is hitting .211 with five homers and 11 RBIs. The Twins are 32-36 in those games.
Asked before Monday’s game how he feels about his first, and maybe last season in Minnesota, Correa said, “I have (43) games to make it a lot better.”
Correa, who is set to return to Houston on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the Astros to sign a three-year, $105.3 million contract with Minnesota, remains a top-flight shortstop — he has only eight errors in 93 games (333 chances) — and is drawing walks and hitting the ball hard. His OPS+ of 124 is only three points below his career average, and his contact numbers all rank good to great according to baseballsavant.com.
“But the situational hitting stats are not there,” he said. “I want to fill all the spaces. So, yeah, I feel like it can still get better. The power numbers can get better, definitely, the slugging.”
Correa is slugging .424 this season. His career average heading into the season was .481. His batting average with runners in scoring position is .227; his career average is .273.
He’s not alone, of course. The Twins entered Tuesday’s game hitting .245 as a team with RISP, 21st in baseball, and combined for just five runs in the first three games of this series against a Rangers team that arrived 13 games under .500.
“It happens throughout the course of a year,” Correa said. “But right now is not the time for that to happen.”
The Twins (62-57) started the day 1½ games behind first-place Cleveland (64-56) in the Central Division race.
Correa has opt-out clauses after the first two years of his contract that could make him an unrestricted free agent this fall. Despite what has been a relatively quiet season for the two-time all-star, Correa is likely to have many suitors. Asked if a suitor’s chances of winning a World Series in 2023 will affect his decision to stay in Minnesota or test the market, he said, “I think we can win here for a long time with the young talent that we have.”
“There is always space to add more talent,” he added. “So, I think with the young core that they have here, and with so many good players and the talent that we have here, I think that there’s a chance that this organization can win for years to come.”
POLANCO SITS
Jorge Polanco was out of the lineup on Monday, a maintenance day for a left knee he injured while sliding into home plate on Aug. 15. An MRI revealed no structural damage, but the Twins’ RBI leader missed two games last week.
“This is more of us keeping Polo on the field and moving, going forward,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Just picking a day to let him kind of recover a little bit. The knee (issue) is not something that’s gone away, that’s for sure.”
BRIEFLY
The Twins had not announced a starting pitcher for Tuesday night’s game against NL West-leading Houston at game time, although it likely will be a pitcher called up from Class AAA St. Paul to take the place of injured Tyler Mahle (shoulder). Dylan Bundy is set to start on Wednesday, Chris Archer on Thursday. … The Twins turned a triple play on Monday, the 17th in team history and second this season.
