Twins’ Donovan Solano thought he walked, based on bad count

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – Donovan Solano wasn’t sure of the count during his seventh-inning at-bat Sunday, so before he stepped into the batter’s box, he asked umpire Jeremy Riggs: “I said, it’s 3-2 right?” Solano said. “And he said ‘yes.’ “

Oops. Reyes Moronta’s next pitch was in the dirt, and Solano dropped his bat and jogged to first base, with Kyle Farmer and Willi Castro each moving up a base ahead of him. When he got there, Angels manager Phil Nevin was busily pointing out to Riggs that the pitch was just ball three, not four.

The umpires huddled, decided Nevin was correct, and sent Solano back to the plate, with Farmer returning to second base and Castro to first.

“Even the catcher [Chad Wallach], hearing him say, ‘Yeah, it’s 3-2,’ he thought it was, too,” Solano said. “We both played that pitch like it’s 3-2.”

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli jumped out of the dugout with an interesting point to argue with the umpires: If that was a live ball, and nobody called time out, why do Farmer and Castro have to surrender their bases?

“If our guys tried to advance because they thought the umpire called ball four and [the Angels] flip the ball to an infielder and he tags us, we will be called out,” Baldelli said. “So if we got to the next base, we should [keep] that base. I just wanted to make sure that it was executed the right way.”

The umpires disagreed, but they also didn’t penalize the Twins for Solano’s stroll to first base; by doing so without actually drawing a walk, he hypothetically could have been charged with a pitch-clock violation for delaying the game.

Correa’s quest

When Carlos Correa returned to the team hotel Saturday, his oldest son Kylo had a surprise for him.

“I got back from the game, and my son is saying ‘Ohtani.’ He’s 17 months,” Correa said. “I guess my wife is teaching him about the best players in the game, so she was teaching him [Shohei] Ohtani.”

Correa’s response?

“I’m going to try to hit a home run off Ohtani, so I can tell [Kylo] one day that I hit a homer off the greatest player of all time,” he said.

He didn’t quite succeed, but Correa was gratified by his third-inning double to right center, his first extra-base hit in a week and the Twins’ lone RBI against the Angels’ Japanese superstar.

“That was a good at-bat. Obviously, he’s got really good stuff,” Correa said. “You’ve really got to grind out there through at-bats to get results against him.”

Saints clipped

The St. Paul Saints gave up five runs in the first inning of a 7-3 series finale loss to host Columbus. The Clippers sent nine men to the plate against Randy Dobnak, who only completed one inning.