Carlos Correa comes up clutch in Twins win over Padres
Two days after being booed by fans at Target Field, Carlos Correa played the role of the hero Thursday afternoon by delivering the go-ahead two-run double to lift the Minnesota Twins to a 5-3 win over the San Diego Padres.
Tied 3-3 in the seventh, Correa ripped a ball down the third baseline that scored two runs to give the Twins a two-run cushion.. Despite the big hit, Correa is batting .193 this season, which is what prompted the boos for the $200 million shortstop just two days earlier.
The win has the Twins at 21-17, three games ahead of the second-place Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.
The Padres wasted zero time jumping out to a 1-0 lead as Fernando Tatis launched a 369-foot homer into the left field bleachers on Bailey Ober's first pitch of the game. That was the beginning of a back-and-forth day in which the Padres also took leads of 2-1 and 3-2, only to have the Twins punch back all three times.
Down 1-0, Joey Gallo walked with the bases loaded to tie the score in the second inning. Down 2-1, Kyle Farmer smacked a solo homer into the second deck in left to make it 2-2. And down 3-2, a run scored on Max Kepler's bases loaded fielder's choice groundout just before Correa hit the go-ahead double in the seventh.
San Diego scored its runs on solo homers by Tatis and Rougned Odor, and an RBI double by Juan Soto.
Ober didn't factor in the decision but posted a quality start by allowing three runs on six hits in six innings. He struck out six and walked none. Emilio Pagan, Brock Stewart and Jorge Lopez pitched the final three innings, with Lopez earning the save by striking out ex-Twins slugger Nelson Cruz to end the game.
Up next: Twins open a three-game series at home against the Cubs on Friday. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. and the game will be streamed exclusively on Apple TV+.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.