Twins' strategic moves at plate set rally for series win in motion 

MINNEAPOLIS -- Carlos Correa raised his arms high above his head and whooped into the air as he sprang up from his slide into third base, having given the Twins a hard-earned lead with a two-out, bases-loaded triple to cap a four-run rally in the sixth inning.

Minnesota strives to put its players in the best matchups and situations to succeed -- and everything about the way that sixth unfolded, from the use of pinch-hitters, to non-use of pinch-hitters, gave the team an edge. And to their credit, Max Kepler took advantage with a game-tying single -- as did Correa -- to hand the Twins a 7-6 win over the Royals on Thursday afternoon at Target Field.

The result, also fueled by a resurgent two-homer performance by Ryan Jeffers, marked Minnesota’s seventh win in nine games and secured a series victory in the four-game set against the upstart Kansas City team sitting one spot ahead in the American League Central standings.

“It’s something we talked about [in the midst of a seven-game skid] in Washington, man,” Correa said. “It felt like if we were down, 2-0, we already lost the game and there was no energy, and no desire to come back. …We have to figure out a way to fight back.”

It has become a significant element of manager Rocco Baldelli’s in-game and lineup construction strategy to aggressively use pinch-hitters to draw up matchup advantages, and that played a significant role in the Twins’ ability to string together a rally against Royals reliever Chris Stratton in that sixth inning, which turned a 4-3 deficit into a 7-4 advantage.

1) Pulling back Julien and putting in Kepler

That sixth inning started with Stratton, a right-hander, striking out Byron Buxton before Willi Castro squibbed a weak grounder to the right of shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. The throw went wide of first and allowed Castro to take second base, putting the tying run in scoring position.

At that point, with the righty on the mound, Baldelli was absolutely going to pinch-hit for right-handed platoon bat Kyle Farmer -- and Edouard Julien had been in the on-deck circle during Castro’s at-bat.

Instead, Julien went back to the dugout and Kepler, another left-handed bat, emerged to hit, with the difference being that Kepler was going to hit instead of Julien with a runner on base. While Julien has more power, Kepler is better at putting the ball in play, as Julien strikes out 32.3% of the time against right-handed pitching, while Kepler only strikes out 14.9% of the time.

And that worked perfectly when Kepler got the barrel to the ball, finding the outfield grass on a two-strike swing to bring Castro home and tie the game.

“We revolve our team and the way we function offensively on being able to do things like that,” Baldelli said. “It’s not easy to do, but it’s something we have to do.”

2) Allowing Margot to hit against the righty

Once Carlos Santana walked and Christian Vázquez struck out, the Twins had one more choice to make.

Normally, it’s a nearly automatic pinch-hit situation when the right-handed-hitting Manuel Margot is due up against a righty pitcher, and Baldelli had a full stable of productive left-handed hitters on the bench in Julien, Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach.

Instead, Baldelli let Margot hit against the fatiguing Stratton, who had already thrown 22 pitches at that point and had yielded two singles and a walk.

Though Baldelli didn’t want to elaborate on the full decision-making process, it surely involved the fact that left-hander Sam Long was hot in the Kansas City bullpen and would enter fresh for a lefty-on-lefty matchup if the Twins were to pinch-hit.

So, the Twins opted to let Margot hit against the tired right-hander instead of getting the fresh pitcher into the game -- and that worked out, with Margot drawing a walk to load the bases.

“You’re likely getting left-on-left, of course, if you start pinch-hitting right there,” Baldelli said. “No, Manny was the right guy and had a great at-bat, and was a huge part of that inning playing out the way it did.”

The Royals then had no choice but to let an even more fatigued Stratton face Correa while already having thrown 27 pitches, since they surely weren’t going to bring in a left-handed reliever against him.

And with that bit of maneuvering, Correa was free to hunt the fastball -- and he drove it to the right-field corner to put the Twins on top.