Twins' victory over 'dead' Rangers was a tale of two Carloses

There was one tremendous Carlos in a key location at Target Field on Friday night, and he was not Torres, the plate umpire. He had a pliable strike zone early in the contest, and this wound up getting a complaint from Matt Wallner, a dispute with Joey Gallo and the end of a two-month ejection slump for manager Rocco Baldelli.

This all happened in the bottom of the third, which also saw old-school Texas manager Bruce Bochy recall Ryan Jeffers' mighty bat flip from Thursday night, and watch him get drilled in the posterior by starter Dane Dunning.

Wallner thought strike three was above the zone, and just barked mildly toward Torres as he returned to the dugout. The towering Gallo, with a historic ability to strike out with no assistance from an umpire, had no doubt that strike two was out of the zone.

And then when he took strike three on the inside corner, Gallo made his point on Torres' inadequacies at the plate, and as he departed to earn only the third ejection of his career.

That's astounding — all the times he has been rung up and Gallo only was run twice previously. Quite the commentary on Torres' movable feast of strikes.

Baldelli had showed a feisty streak with umpires earlier this season, but he had been sitting on four ejections since June 23. He came out between innings, pointed out Torres' shortcomings and was tossed.

Crew chief Cory Blaser had arrived from third and Baldelli was making two-handed motions to show his version of Torres' dancing strike zone.

The Twins didn't add on to a 4-1 lead in that inning, and then Sonny Gray — a starter who has been around the block — drilled Mitch Garver in the rear end with a fastball in the fourth.

Good old-fashioned "You hit my catcher, I'll hit your catcher."

Garver, an important part of Minnesota's Bomba Squad in 2019 and a Twin through 2021, made a brief move of unhappiness toward the mound. That turned into halfhearted jogs onto the field from both dugouts and even the bullpens.

Legend has it, Garver and the young, talkative Jeffers were not exactly chums in their time together as Twins catchers.

Garver's bruised feelings didn't fire up the Rangers. Gray cruised through seven innings on 81 pitches, the other Carlos — Correa — got the Twins rolling again with a blast of a home run in the seventh and this became the final:

Texas now has lost eight in a row. "The Rangers really look dead," was an observation heard in the press box before the game.

Bulletin: Every team looks dead when it doesn't hit. There's no better example of that than the low moments for these erratic Twins.

And during the worst of those moments, all of us observers aimed barbs at Correa. Leading the league in hitting into double plays. Hitting in the low .200s.

Yet if you've been watching Correa play shortstop, on a sore foot but with that arm, with that positioning, with those hands and always making the right play, there's a new conclusion to offer:

The Twins are lucky to have this player, even at $200 million. They never have had a shortstop — not Zoilo Versalles, not the ranging Greg Gagne, not Cristian Guzman at his best — in the same ballpark playing the key position in the infield.

He's throwing those fastballs when needed across the diamond with the near-perfection required, as Alex Kirilloff is hurt again, and Donovan Solano is regularly left attempting to play first base.

There were some boos to be heard in the first inning when Correa hit into a double play, his 25th of the season. The fact the ball was smoked did not dissuade the critics.

What followed was his 16th home run to a raise the RBI total to 57. That isn't much of a number, but it's more than anyone else has on this hitting-challenged team.