Correa’s HR acts as a shot in the arm
Slumping shortstop, teammates see signs of batting revival
CLEVELAND — Squinting to combat the alcohol burning his eyeballs, the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel carried on about the start he’d engineered at Progressive Field: five innings of two-run ball in a game that sent his team to the American League Championship Series. He rambled on before suddenly coming to a stop.
“Correa’s opposite-field home run,” he exclaimed. “That really set him up for the next round.”
When he received a green light against another of Cleveland’s flammable relievers, Correa exorcised the exasperation of his American League Division Series.
Behind in the count 3-0, Brad Hand served the scuffling shortstop a four-seam fastball. It sat up and over the outer half. As Correa tends to do when he’s unencumbered, he creamed it to the opposite field.
Correa took two steps from the batter’s box, gazed at the baseball’s 366-foot trajectory and turned toward his team in the first base dugout.
Correa jumped, yelled and
banged his chest. Back and oblique injuries that hampered him for so much of a difficult regular season were, for a moment, numb. His sprint around the bases was jubilant — a catharsis in Cleveland for the Astros shortstop who so sorely needed it.
“Like I’ve said before, I felt really good the whole series,” Correa said between selfies with first-base coach Alex Cintron in the alcoholsoaked visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field.
“I was seeing pitches well. My swing feels really good. My back obviously feels good right now. It was just a matter of time, and when we needed it the most, I was able to get that homer and give us a comfortable lead.”
The three-run homer was Correa’s only hit in 13 plate appearances against the Indians. It came from the seventh spot in Houston’s batting order.
Never before in his four-year major league career had Correa hit so low in a lineup, a drop required Monday to break up the lefthanded hitters near the bottom of the Astros’ order.
“My confidence this whole series has been up there,” Correa said. “I’ve been hitting really good (in batting practice). I’ve been taking good at-bats. I’m seeing the ball well. It’s not like I’m chasing all the pitches.
“It was only a matter of time, and I was able to connect, and it gives me a lot of confidence going into the next series.”
Neither manager A.J. Hinch nor general manager Jeff Luhnow opted to panic as Correa’s miserable regular season bleeded into the playoffs. He entered Game 3 without a hit in nine plate appearances.
Hinch took solace in Correa’s swings during Games 1 and 2 — Correa hit three balls in play harder than 97 mph — and continued to laud the elite defense he played in spite of his offensive woes. More swings toward the opposite field were promising, too.
“I always predicted he was going to have a big postseason,” Luhnow said Monday. “He’s taken some critical walks, but him being able to knock it over the fence today was huge. I think it’s a huge confidence builder, and he’s going to be able to really get back to the Correa we know is in there.”
That version of Correa — the menacing, power-hitting phenom who once hit cleanup in a loaded lineup — won’t reappear overnight. He already has acknowledged work lies ahead in an important offseason to recapture the swing his injuries so badly mangled.
Harnessing just a sliver of it, though, is a sight for sore eyes.
“For him personally, he’s worked a ton to get his swing back,” Hinch said. “Maybe that catapults into something big and leaves a great impression for himself this (upcoming) series.”