LOS ANGELES — As jeers rained down on Carlos Correa from a Dodger Stadium crowd voicing its displeasure over the 2017 Houston Astros — Correa’s team was found to be electronically stealing signs that season, during which it beat the Dodgers in the World Series — the Twins’ shortstop nearly found a way to quiet the masses.
Correa, representing the game-tying run, drove a pitch from Kirby Yates 399 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 5-2 win for the Dodgers on Monday night.
“When I hit it, I thought it had a pretty good chance,” Correa said.
But so it went for the Twins (48-52) on Monday, who outhit the Dodgers (59-42) on the night and made plenty of loud contact, but were largely unable to manufacture runs, finishing the day 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position and leaving 13 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 said. “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 game.”
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 game that the Twins actually 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 game from Ohtani and sent it 410 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 said. “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 35th 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 some hard contact. Ohtani has been limited to short starts thus far this season as he works his way back from a 2023 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 4 2/3 innings. It wasn’t until the ninth inning that they finally 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 said. “(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.”
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