Twins Territory wasn’t very happy overnight after we learned Royce Lewis had been sent to Triple-A St. Paul to make room for Carlos Correa and his return to the lineup after spending 10 days on the injured list.
Correa certainly didn’t waste any time showing us that he is still the Big Man On Campus after he singled, doubled, scored two runs, drove in a run and walked to help the Twins coast to a 14-4 win over the Oakland A’s on Wednesday.
The Twins scored 14 runs on 14 hits and were a very refreshing 10-for-17 with runners in scoring position. Luis Arraez also had a big day with three hits, including two doubles, and Gary Sanchez drove in three runs.
Starter Sonny Gray made a quality start and improved to 1-1 with a 3.48 ERA.
Devin Smeltzer gets the ball Friday in Kansas City.
Extra innings…
-We’re probably going to be seeing more of Smeltzer now that Chris Paddack has been lost to Tommy John surgery.
-The Twins have a 3.5 game lead in the AL Central, but they might really bust it open because they play the two weakest teams in the division over the next several days. Beginning Friday, they play three at Kansas City, then come home to play the Tigers and Royals again, then they hit the road to play the Tigers again.
-Discovered an error on the “today in baseball history” portion of the Baseball-Reference.com website. It says that on May 18, 1962, the Twins walloped the Cleveland Indians 14-3 after Harmon Killebrew and Bob Allison each hit a grand slam in the first inning. That did happen, except it took place on July 18, 1962. Two grand slams contributed to an 11-run first inning.
Cleveland pitcher Barry Latman could not get an out in the first inning before his day was done, and then Jim Perry, who would join the Twins the following season, gave the Tribe seven innings of relief, but still allowed eight runs.
I wanted to see how the Minneapolis Tribune covered the game, but for some reason the May, June and July editions of the paper for 1962 are not available on newspapers.com.