Has Correa found a fix in red-hot start to September?

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Not once this season has Carlos Correa shied away from acknowledging his prolonged struggles, and not once has he tried to make excuses for his poor performance by referring to the plantar fasciitis pain in his left foot unless explicitly asked about it.

At times, he’s tried to bring his self-deprecating humor to the situation by calling himself “slow as [expletive],” or by joking that he should ask Royce Lewis for launch angle tips when asked about how he’s set the Twins' all-time double play record this year.

But more seriously, Correa has been seeking adjustments all season, trying to find some mechanical or approach fix that will help him adapt to his more flexible body following an offseason of work and the pain in the heel that has bothered him for the majority of the season.

It’s too soon to tell if his early success in September means that the vaunted version of the star shortstop that has embraced the brightest lights has finally arrived to carry the Twins into October. But he’s been working, and working -- and the Twins hope he’s finally found it.

“There's a lot of things he doesn't say,” hitting coach David Popkins said. “He's always just going in and doing it. Like I said, he's not making excuses. He's just going in and playing every day and giving it everything he's got and emptying the tank. I think now, he's found something, and some of that mental strength has carried over to now. Nothing can really break him now.”

Correa has gone through many different iterations of his mechanical adjustments this year. Earlier in the year, he struggled to keep his swing direct as he dealt with the increased flexibility created by his offseason training regimen to keep him healthier. He went through a phase -- coinciding with his move to the leadoff spot -- where he focused on putting the ball in play, almost entirely cutting out his power for a while and shooting the ball to the opposite field.

He’s had brief upswings -- but nothing too sustained.

“He’s no baby,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s not going to let something that doesn’t go his way deter him from what he knows he needs to do going forward. He resets very, very well and fairly easily, and it’s not even a mentality. I think it’s partly a mentality and partly how he’s built.”

But now, as Correa starts September, perhaps this upswing could be the one that lasts. That would track with the shortstop’s extensive track record of clutch performances when it matters most. He has put 27 balls in play this month, entering Sunday -- and 18 of them have qualified as hard-hit (95-plus mph off the bat). He hit the hardest homer of his career at 114.2 mph on Friday.

Correa has explained that this iteration of adjustments has him aiming for the bottom inside part of the ball, in conjunction with other tweaks made during the Twins' series in Texas on the last road trip. Correa didn’t go into details, but Popkins said Correa is starting with his hands a bit farther from his head, which gives him more tension in his core -- and that makes a difference.

And, of course, the season has also involved trying to find a way to fix those mechanics while adapting to pain, which complicates matters.

We’ve known that Correa has been playing through plantar fasciitis -- which can lead to significant pain in his foot and heel -- since late May, when he missed three games to rest the foot before again needing three games off his feet in early June.

Since then, he’s played through the pain, but he shared with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic two weeks ago that “every step is a struggle” and it’s the most pain he’s ever played through. It’s not as simple as just taking a little bit of time off his feet to let it resolve, as corroborated by Baldelli. The skipper also dealt with the issue during his playing career, and said it took a full offseason off his feet to finally feel relief.

When Correa was asked if he considered taking extended time off to see if it would help, his answer was immediate.

“Never,” Correa said. “I don’t want to be sitting out if I can at least be at 50 percent and go out there and play. Sitting out was never an option. It’s, ‘Let’s try to manage this. Let’s try to contain it and try not to get worse.’

“Some days, it’s better than others. Some days, it sucks. But I’m showing up every day, and that’s what matters to me as an individual and as the person that I am and how much I care about this game.”

Of course it affects him. It’s the foot he plants in his swing, and Popkins notes that would sometimes lead to some early rotation and more ground balls -- hence the double plays. But Correa has grinded through it, focused on being the team’s leader and providing his customary defense at shortstop.

“It’s obviously something I’ve had to deal with since May, and it is what it is,” Correa said. “I’m the one making the choice to go out there and play every single day like that, and that’s fine. I want to be there for the guys.”

Next year, he hopes this won’t be an issue, and he can be himself again. And as the Twins get deeper into September, he hopes he’s found something that works for now.

“That's one thing I admire about him, and that I think everyone admires about him now,” Popkins said. “He's gone through it most of the year, ups and downs, and kind of keeps pushing forward. He's never made an excuse of how his body has felt or the pain. He just keeps going and keeps trying to figure it out. That work's been rewarded so far this month.”