Patience pays: 3 walks and Twins walk off

MINNEAPOLIS -- When the skies opened up above Target Field following the seventh inning of Saturday’s game, the FOX national broadcast switched over to the matchup between the Cardinals and Braves -- and so did the Twins’ attention, apparently.

“I think we got inspired by the Cardinals' walk-off,” Carlos Correa said. “We were watching the game in here and said, ‘Let’s do the same thing.’ We went out there and did it the exact same way: walk-off walk.”

Trailing by two into the ninth after that 51-minute rain delay, Correa and Jake Cave came through with back-to-back knocks to tie the game. And after they executed some crisp defense and a rare sacrifice bunt in the 10th, Gilberto Celestino did, indeed, walk it off with a bases-loaded walk that sent the Twins to an improbable 3-2 triumph that, considering the circumstances, might have been their most meaningful win of the season.

“What we call small things sometimes are not so small,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “They won the game for us today.”

If the Twins are going to make a push for October, these are the games they have to win. They have to be able to seize and carry forward the momentum from a previous victory. They have to execute in crunch time, their biggest stars leading the way.

But for 8 1/2 innings, it felt that Saturday night was destined to be the next downswing in the cycle of hope and disappointment this month for the Twins, a team chronically unable to build on its successes as it chased a lost lead in the division. They’d swept the Royals last homestand -- only to follow that with a six-game losing streak. Blanked 2-0 late on Saturday, their nine-run outburst in a dominant Friday win over these Giants seemed forgotten.

But they swung the narrative -- and they did so emphatically.

After having stranded nine baserunners through the first eight innings -- including runners on the corners with none out in the eighth -- the Twins got a leadoff walk from Max Kepler in the ninth, and, two batters later, a two-out free pass to Luis Arraez from Giants right-hander Camilo Doval.

Correa roped a sinker to right to cap his first four-hit performance as a Twin, and even after third-base coach Tommy Watkins gave Kepler a stop sign at third base, Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski’s misdirected throw allowed Kepler to score the tying run and Arraez to move to third. Cave followed with another opposite-field knock to knot the score, 2-2, helping improve the Twins to 5-50 in games in which they trailed after eight innings this season.

The ball found Correa in the top of the 10th, too, as he made a key throw to third base on the inning-opening grounder to nail the lead runner, and another nice turn to second on the subsequent ground ball to help rookie Jhoan Duran. Nick Gordon also executed a perfect sacrifice bunt to open the bottom of the 10th, setting up the trio of walks to Gio Urshela, Kepler and Celestino to complete the comeback.

“Yesterday, we come out swinging the bats great, pitch great, play good defense,” Baldelli said. “It was really an all-around game. Today’s game did not come so easy. It was a challenging affair in a lot of ways -- offensively, pitching-wise at times, and defensively. Honestly, we didn’t play perfect baseball, but we did enough, and we certainly didn’t quit.”

It’s significant that those big opportunities found Correa, Gordon and Celestino.

Correa has long been in search of a signature moment for the Twins, his team needing him to step up more than ever down the stretch. He entered the game with a .616 OPS with runners in scoring position this season and an eye-opening .388 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position -- and he came through big in the ninth and 10th, on both sides of the ball.

Cave had been mired in an 0-for-21 slump before his big hits in the eighth and ninth. Gordon struck out with the tying run at third in the eighth. Celestino had made a mental error in the ninth, allowing two important trail runners to move up 90 feet.

They all got their redemption for one night -- and the Twins really needed it.

“To not just cash it in there at the end, which very easily could have happened, we didn't do it,” Gray said. “Maybe this is one that will show its face later in the season.”