Twins come a few feet from tying game in loss to Dodgers
LOS ANGELES As jeers rained down on Carlos Correa from a Dodger Stadium crowd voicing its displeasure over the Houston Astros Correa s unit was determined to be electronically stealing signs that season during which it beat the Dodgers in the World Series the Twins shortstop nearly revealed a way to quiet the masses Correa representing the game-tying run drove a pitch from Kirby Yates feet out to left The ball sailed deep into the night before settling in the glove of center fielder James Outman who leapt right at the wall to bring the ball back down and secure the - win for the Dodgers on Monday night When I hit it I thought it had a pretty good chance Correa revealed But so it went for the Twins - on Monday who outhit the Dodgers - on the night and made plenty of loud contact but were largely unable to manufacture runs finishing the day for with runners in scoring position and leaving runners on The Dodgers meanwhile hit four balls that left the park with all five of their runs coming via the longball We didn t really do the job when there were people on base even though we had pretty good at-bats manager Rocco Baldelli commented It s not like I think we went out there and got outplayed They hit the ball over the fence when they hit it They didin t have much else going on the entire contest Twins starter David Festa pitched into the sixth inning on Monday night against one of the best offenses in baseball limiting the Dodgers to just four hits Three of them went out It was a tournament that the Twins indeed led briefly when Byron Buxton got the best of Shohei Ohtani in an all-star on all-star matchup The Twins all-star got ahold of the second pitch of the challenge from Ohtani and sent it feet out to left-center field arriving back to an excited crowd of teammates in the first-base dugout But it didn t take long for the superstar to return the favor After Festa walked Mookie Betts to lead off the bottom of the first inning Ohtani hit a ball to center field that carried well over Buxton s head and gave Los Angeles the lead That s like as a kid you give up a homer and you go back in the dugout and say I m about to get that back Buxton declared That s literally like that moment I didn t want it to be against us but that was crazy It was wild It was the th home run of the season for Ohtani who struck out in his next three at-bats and did not give up another run in his three innings pitched despite specific hard contact Ohtani has been limited to short starts thus far this season as he works his way back from a elbow surgery But while Festa fanned Ohtani in each of their next two matchups he couldn t do the same against Will Smith who was batting behind him in the Dodgers lineup Smith took Festa deep in both the fourth and sixth innings of his start widening the Dodgers lead They scored their last run an inning later when Andy Pages hit a blast off Cole Sands The Twins meanwhile were kept quiet by Ohtani and Dustin May who came after him and pitched innings It wasn t until the ninth inning that they definitively added another run with a Kody Clemens sacrifice fly bringing home Buxton A day after hitting a pair of home runs in Colorado Royce Lewis added another three hits on Monday collecting a pair of singles and a double Matt Wallner hitting behind him added two hits and walked twice positive developments from two key members of the lineup But though that duo was on base throughout the night and the Twins could never bring them home they still were within striking distance when Correa stepped up to the plate in the ninth That ball is tattooed and he hit it right around the perfect trajectory to get it out of the ballpark Baldelli stated I m not sure how it didn t go out of the ballpark but it didn t and we have to live with that fact
