For two to three “solid days” after he collided with center fielder Byron Buxton in Baltimore, Carlos Correa experienced dizziness, headaches and brain fog.
“My thoughts were slow,” the shortstop said. “It was definitely very different from where I usually am.”
The two smacked into each other last Thursday trying to catch a Cedric Mullins fly ball, leaving both with concussions. On Friday, Correa returned to the Twins’ lineup, cleared to return to the field after undergoing neurological testing. Buxton still remains out, though he is ramping up baseball activities and completed ground-based running on Friday at Target Field.
The play, Correa said, was a “weird,” one, noting that after the first two innings of the game, the sun had just come out in Baltimore.
“The ball was right in the sun for me so I was like angling on the side and then when I went to make my move to get into the sun and catch it, that’s when he called me off.”
When he heard Buxton calling for the ball, he tried to get out of the way. But after the ball landed in Buxton’s glove, they both moved in the same direction. The result was the two Twins stars down on the grass, both being tended to for minutes before they were able to get up. Correa left the game immediately. Buxton stayed in for that half inning before departing.
“It’s unfortunate,” Correa said. “You don’t want it to happen but at the same time, a play like that happens very rarely where we both are going after that ball. It was just one of those where it was a perfect storm and everything lined up for us to collide.”
Correa said he physically feels like he is full-go and expressed happiness that the way the schedule worked out meant he missed five games, rather than seven.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said they would treat him as day to day initially, letting him play and then assessing how he’s doing just to make sure everything is going smoothly. He might wind up with a day off within the next few days.
“You just never know when you’re in these types of situations, when you deal with any sort of head injury and recovery and such, you really do have to play it slow and play it day-by-day,” Baldelli said. “We got to a really good point and he feels great, so it was clear the time was now that we could activate him. Knowing that we put that past and we can focus now on just playing, that’s a good feeling.”
Wallner on rehab
Baldelli isn’t scouring the minor league box scores to check in on his players when they go on rehab assignments — “as long as they’re healthy and doing fine, that’s really the only thing I care about,” — but he was aware that right fielder Matt Wallner had hit two home runs on Thursday night in the first game of his rehab assignment.
Wallner, who has been out since mid-April with a hamstring strain, was scheduled to begin his rehab assignment on Wednesday but the Saints were rained out. He started in right field on Thursday and was the Saints’ designated hitter on Saturday.
Briefly
Zebby Matthews is scheduled to start on Saturday in the second game of the Twins’ series against the Royals. Matthews gave up four runs in three innings his last start out, his first at the major league level this season. He will be opposed by right-hander Michael Wacha. … The first 10,000 fans through the gates on Saturday will receive a Royce Lewis City Connect bobblehead. … Most Twins players were sporting Timberwolves gear pregame after receiving shirts and hoodies from their next-door neighbors.
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