Correa on struggles and jeers: 'I'd boo myself, too'

MINNEAPOLIS -- Carlos Correa has grown accustomed to hearing boos in just about every ballpark around the league -- but Tuesday marked the first time he’s gotten booed by his home fans at Target Field.

And he thinks it’s more than fair.

“I'd boo myself, too, with the amount of money I'm making, and I’m playing like that,” Correa said.

Sloppy defense in the seventh inning spoiled one of the best starts of Louie Varland’s young career in the series opener, and Correa went 0-for-5 and stranded six runners on base. The Padres opened up the final margin late after those missed opportunities and the Twins endured another tough loss, 6-1, to begin a six-game homestand.

As the Twins’ offense has endured its recent struggles, the challenges of the star shortstop hitting below the Mendoza Line in the No. 2 spot have become magnified -- and it seems that the game’s biggest spots have been finding him, too.

“Carlos has great perspective,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He knows that. He understands that. Adding stress to a situation never works. Adding ideas to a situation and adding some patience for yourself and some ways to actually calm down probably work better than anything else.”

In the third, seventh and ninth innings, Correa stepped to the plate with two men on -- and a popout, a three-pitch strikeout and a weak groundout ended each of those possible rallies.

Correa worked with hitting coach David Popkins on a mechanical adjustment at the start of the Twins’ last road trip that he feels made an immediate difference in his ability to drive the ball -- but he just couldn’t find that contact on Tuesday.

“Obviously, this has been a rough start, but the season doesn't end there,” Correa said. “So, my work doesn't end there, either. Just keep working, trusting the process of the work I'm putting in the cage every single day, and naturally, something is going to click.”

Correa goes back to the chaos in his free agency across the past two offseasons as a destabilizing factor in both 2022 and ‘23. He mentioned having to be overly cautious not to get hurt while unsigned and having to delay his physical preparation, putting him behind.

His hitless evening dropped him to .185/.261/.363 for the season -- including a paltry .138/.257/.241 (a .498 OPS) with runners in scoring position. That’s not to mention his .633 OPS last April before he hit his stride in May.

“Having two [such] offseasons back-to-back, that’s kind of why the slow starts are what they are,” Correa said. “But that’s no excuse. I’m a good enough player to make adjustments sooner.”

Correa added flexibility and mobility with stretching and yoga during the offseason to help him stay healthier and more limber, but he and Popkins found that added too much counter-rotation in his swing, making it longer to the ball. He’s thus been late, which could explain why much of his contact in late April was to the opposite field and why he entered Tuesday with a highly uncharacteristic .186 average and .357 slugging percentage against fastballs.

They tightened it up ahead of the White Sox series last week -- and Correa responded by pulling the ball with authority, with 14 of his 20 batted balls against Chicago and Cleveland registering as hard-hit (in excess of 95 mph exit velocity).

Watch Correa’s swing from the side, Popkins explains -- and his front elbow in particular. Before the adjustment, he’d rock it backward to load before starting to swing; now, he keeps it steady and goes directly through the ball. He’s also a little more spread out in his stance, with a quieter front foot -- and that’s helped his timing.

Can that small of a tweak make a big difference?

“Efficiency is big now, with how good pitching is,” Popkins said. “Very small things. … If those little things are off, you can’t miss it, you can’t miss that pitch. You feel like your trigger’s off.”

Ever the analytical mind, Correa has enough information to recite his recent expected wOBA and batted average on balls in play from memory -- and he knows that those numbers indicate that his adjustments seem to have done their job.

The Twins’ offense needs the results to follow to help the team turn around.

“Eventually, they’re going to fall,” Correa said. “You know what I mean? They say it evens out at the end of the day. I don’t know if that’s true, but we’re going to find out.”