*Photo from Marca.com*
Series tied 1-1
Houston knows this guy pretty well. Kyle Farmer homered, Carlos Correa drove in 3 runs, and the Minnesota Twins defeated the Houston Astros with a 6-2 victory on Sunday night in Houston.
With the win, the Twins evened the series with the Astros at a game apiece, handing the Astros a rare home loss in the postseason. They've forced at least a 4th game in this series on the heels of their first playoff series win since 2002.
But the real story was around Correa, a former Astro. Known as a big performer in the postseason, he reached 63 career RBI's in the playoffs on Sunday, passing David Ortiz and Derek Jeter. He is now tied for 3rd in baseball history for postseason RBI's with David Justice.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Correa that "We’ve always heard all of the sayings and things, when the lights come on and the bright lights, there are some guys, they’re giants in the light, and he’s one of them. That’s what he is. He’s always an excellent player, but when it matters most, it’s like he can really take his attention and channel it and focus it and just play even better over and over again."
Correa gave the Twins a 1-0 lead in the first, socking an RBI double to left center field. That lead was tripled in the second inning when Farmer hit a two run home run to center field, making it 3-0 Twins. In the 5th inning, Correa struck again, hitting a two run single up the middle that scored Donovan Solano and Michael A Taylor to make it 5-0 Twins.
Edouard Julien kept the good times rolling for the Twins in the 7th inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, he singled to right field, scoring Royce Lewis to make it 6-0. Correa was trying to score to make it 7-0, but he was tagged out. Yordan Alvarez got the Astros on the board in the 8th with a two run home run to make it 6-2. The Twins closed it out from there.
Twins pitcher Pablo Lopez said of Correa's game that "I think he is the kind of player that sometimes it's amazing and surprising that he sees things that no one else can see. When he's on defense, he just makes the unbelievable plays. When he's on offense, he wants the big moments to make something happen. He can really hype up a team."
It was Lopez who took the mound for the Twins, turning in a strong performance. He pitched 7 shutout innings, allowing 6 hits and one walk with 7 strikeouts. Brock Stewart allowed two runs in the 8th, necessitating Jhoan Duran to come in and pitch a scoreless 9th to seal the win.
Framber Valdez allowed 5 runs while lasting 4 1/3 innings for the Astros in his start. Phil Maton finished the 5th before Ryne Stanek allowed a run in 1 1/3 innings. Rafael Montero worked 1 2/3 scoreless innings while Hunter Brown pitched a scoreless 9th inning.
Houston 3rd baseman Alex Bregman said of the series tying loss that "I just feel like in the postseason you try to win every pitch of every game and execute. Obviously, we didn't do that tonight. Tip your hat to Pablo because he pitched really well. We didn’t do enough offensively, but we have to regroup."
After a day off on Monday, the series shifts to Minnesota for games 3 and 4, with game 3 on Tuesday afternoon. Both teams will try for the 2-1 series lead, with Sonny Gray starting for the Twins and Cristian Javier going for the Astros.
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