Correa saves Twins' lead with absolute seed to nail Ohtani at home

MINNEAPOLIS -- Carlos Correa has still been getting his share of rowdy boos from the Dodgers fans who made their way north to Target Field this week -- so as a parting gift, he took the boos out of their mouths and left them speechless instead.

The pivotal moment of Wednesday’s series finale came in the top of the seventh, star power on star power: Freddie Freeman ripping a double to send Shohei Ohtani barreling towards the plate with the tying run, against Correa gearing up to heave a relay throw home.

Correa received, turned and threw a 92.2 mph strike from shallow right field. Ohtani slid, feet-first. Christian Vázquez swatted down the tag on Ohtani’s foot, just before it touched the plate. Ohtani was initially ruled safe -- but a replay review quickly overturned it, and that was that, holding the Twins’ narrow lead in their 3-2 victory over the Dodgers.

“I told him, ‘Carlos, what's your favorite bottle of wine under about $200?’ And he said he doesn't drink,” said Brock Stewart, who was on the mound for that pivotal play. “So I guess I'm off the hook.”

Amid the Twins’ early-season struggles, a healthy Correa with a fully functional heel has been their sparkplug on both offense and defense -- and he might very well have swung the outcome of the game for his scuffling team.

The Twins wouldn’t have had that lead without a resurgent performance from Edouard Julien, who surged out of his early slump with two homers and three runs scored in his first career multihomer game. The decisive blast off reliever Alex Vesia in the fifth marked Julien's first career homer off a left-handed pitcher.

That set the stage for the play.

The set-up
With the Twins nursing that one-run lead against the superstar-studded top of the Dodgers’ lineup, Ohtani stood on first with two outs as Freeman roped a line drive into the right-field corner.

Alex Kirilloff had to wait for the ball to take two caroms before he fielded it and threw in one motion to Correa, who was waiting on the right-field line as the cutoff man.

“You just want to try to play it cleanly and get it in as quickly as possible knowing that Carlos has such a good arm,” Kirilloff said.

There were two outs, and Ohtani ranks in MLB’s 75th percentile in average sprint speed this season and stole 20 bags last year. Of course the Dodgers would send him, representing the tying run in a key spot.

“I don’t think he would’ve sent him if it wasn’t Shohei,” Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said. “With two outs, you’ve got to make them make that play.”

Correa positions and throws
Considering Correa is the shortstop, you might ask why he was the one to take the cutoff throw on the right-field foul line.

“If Julien had a better arm, then I would let him go get it,” Correa said with a laugh. “That's what I tell him.”

Indeed, Correa’s max-effort arm strength last season was 91.7 mph, while Julien clocked in at 82.5 mph with his hardest throw.

With the left-handed Freeman at the plate, Correa was already playing behind the second-base bag, leaving him closer than usual to right field. As soon as the ball was hit, Correa sprinted toward the line, while Julien crossed over to cover second base.

Kirilloff hurled it to a waiting Correa, whose throw from 149 feet away from home plate matched the second-hardest assist by a Twins infielder in the Statcast era (since 2015) -- behind only a 93.5 mph throw from Correa himself on Sept. 20, 2022.

“It was crazy, huh?” Julien said. “From the outfield, he just threw it on a line, right? He's probably got the best arm at shortstop in the big leagues.”

Vázquez makes the tag
The throw to Vázquez was perfect, and the Twins’ backstop swept his glove into position between Ohtani’s sliding right foot and home plate, leaving him certain that the initial safe call would be overturned by a replay review.

“Yeah, I put the glove on top of home plate, and he touched the glove,” Vázquez said.

It was a bang-bang play completed only by perfection from Correa -- and that garnered respect from the other side.

“If it was a little bit higher, he would’ve been safe,” Roberts said. “It was just a really good baseball play. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong end of that one.”