{"id":275609,"date":"2023-09-13T08:58:25","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T13:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=275609"},"modified":"2023-09-13T08:58:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T13:58:57","slug":"275609","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=275609","title":{"rendered":"Castro, on &#8216;another level,&#8217; hits blast to rally Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>MINNEAPOLIS &#8212; You never know whose turn it is to play hero for these Twins &#8212; and on Tuesday night, it was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/player\/650489\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Willi Castro<\/a>\u2019s turn to step into the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Really, that\u2019s where Castro has been ever since he returned from an oblique injury and paternity leave at the start of September. But in a big situation against one of the American League\u2019s best teams, Castro drove the point home with a go-ahead two-run blast in the seventh inning that pushed the Twins to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/gameday\/rays-vs-twins\/2023\/09\/12\/716613\/final\/box\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">3-2, come-from-behind win<\/a>&nbsp;against the Rays at Target Field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just been hot,\u201d manager Rocco Baldelli said. \u201cWhatever he\u2019s got going on right now, I like it. He\u2019s spraying a lot of good, hard line drives, he\u2019s playing the way he\u2019s played all year long, and I think he\u2019s even taken it to another level right now, which is pretty sweet to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/twins\/schedule\/2023-09\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Games remaining<\/strong><\/a><strong>:<\/strong>&nbsp;vs. TB (1), at CWS (4), at CIN (3), vs. LAA (3), vs. OAK (3), at COL (3)<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/twins\/standings\/2023-09-12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Standings update<\/strong><\/a><strong>:<\/strong>&nbsp;The Twins (76-69) hold a 7 1\/2-game lead on the Guardians (69-77) for the AL Central title. Cleveland clinched the tiebreaker by winning the season series, 7-6. Minnesota is currently the third-best division winner, meaning it would host a best-of-three Wild Card Series vs. the final Wild Card entrant starting on Oct. 3.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/glossary\/advanced-stats\/magic-number\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Magic number<\/strong><\/a><strong>:<\/strong>&nbsp;10 (for AL Central).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The Twins trailed for the majority of Tuesday\u2019s game against former teammate-turned-Rays starter Zack Littell. But they finally created an opening in the seventh, down 2-1, when Max Kepler singled to snap a streak of 11 straight hitters retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With two outs, Castro dug beneath the zone for a first-pitch Littell slider and crushed it a Statcast-projected 434 feet to the bleachers in deep right-center for the third-longest homer of his career and his seventh of the season. Since returning to the team on Sept. 3, he\u2019s 11-for-28 (.393) with two doubles, one triple, two homers and two stolen bases in nine games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;ve been throwing me a lot of offspeed,\u201d Castro said. \u201dI know in the reports, I know they have it for them to throw me a lot of offspeed, so I have to make the adjustments. I was ready for that pitch. I really like those pitches down low, so I took advantage and got a good swing on it, and I was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The end to the divisional race is now in sight for the Twins, who lead the second-place Guardians by 7 1\/2 games with only 17 left to play after Cleveland beat San Francisco, 3-1, on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Castro\u2019s surprise emergence as one of this team\u2019s most versatile weapons has played no small part in that success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the Twins entered Spring Training with their projected roster mostly set, a few lingering injuries created the opportunity for Castro to break camp as a surprise in the final roster spot &#8212; and even Baldelli admitted the Twins didn\u2019t fully understand the magnitude of the skill set Castro brought at that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\u2019ve had to learn for themselves throughout the season &#8212; and they\u2019ve quickly found that he might be one of the more well-rounded players Baldelli has fielded in his time in Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEven though he was in our division with Detroit, there\u2019s only so much you\u2019re going to learn [by] seeing a guy,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cWe saw him a lot, but we didn\u2019t see all these different things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Twins learned, for instance, that Castro can play a good center field with a much better arm than they expected. He has served as the club\u2019s primary center fielder in the absence of Michael A. Taylor, and he has also appeared everywhere on the diamond but first base and catcher as a key facilitator of Baldelli\u2019s late-inning bench moves due to his versatility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Twins also didn\u2019t realize that Castro would be this good of a baserunner. His 31 steals this season are the most by a Twins player since Ben Revere swiped 40 bags in 2012, and Castro is one of only nine players in club history with a 30-steal season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, he\u2019s the only Twins player aside from Hall of Famer Rod Carew to steal home three times in a season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Castro is one of few players on the team who can drop down a sacrifice bunt; he can even pitch in a pinch to save the bullpen\u2019s arms. And that .737 OPS in 110 games has been a pleasant development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He actually led the Twins\u2019 position players in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/glossary\/advanced-stats\/wins-above-replacement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WAR<\/a>, per Baseball Reference, for much of the summer &#8212; and there\u2019s plenty of good reason for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It helps that he can pop a game-changing homer on occasion, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to get excited knowing that you have him and you can take advantage of all those different things in one given game,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cHe can affect a game in a lot of ways, and he continues to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MINNEAPOLIS &#8212; You never know whose turn it is to play hero for these Twins &#8212; and on Tuesday night, it was&nbsp;Willi Castro\u2019s turn to step into the spotlight. Really, that\u2019s where Castro has been ever since he returned from an oblique injury and paternity leave at the start of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":275610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275612,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275609\/revisions\/275612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/275610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}