Carlos Correa trying to find consistency as hitter: ‘I’ve got to figure it out’

CINCINNATI - Carlos Correa, mired in the worst offensive season of his career, does not want to make any excuses for his performance in the batter’s box this year.

“I’ve got to figure it out and be more consistent,” Correa said. “I thought May was a great month. Then June, I completely lost it for a little bit there. I’m working with the hitting coaches. We’re trying some things today and we’ll go from there. But I’ve got to do a better job of being more consistent, especially at this stage of my career.”

There are multiple factors compounding Correa’s struggles. Pitchers are attacking him differently than in the past, manager Rocco Baldelli said, particularly with the way they’ve pounded the bottom of the strike zone. Correa says he’s seen more off-speed pitches early in counts, causing him to chase pitches, and he’s been late on fastballs.

Correa entered Wednesday with a .241 batting average and a below-average .645 OPS. He’s drawn walks in 5.1% of his plate appearances, which is a significant drop from his career walk rate (10.4%). He’s swinging at more pitches than he has throughout his career, which he said was part of the “mechanical problems” because he has trouble checking his swing.

“My [private] hitting coach that I worked with, he’s been telling me we’ve got to make some mechanical adjustments, ‘You’re getting pitched a lot on the edges this year,’ ” said Correa, who is striking out at his normal career rate, but hitting for less power. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean nothing to me. I’ve still got to find a way.’ We will.”

Correa, who is making $36 million this season, thought he made some meaningful strides last month. After posting a .642 OPS in April, he produced a .875 OPS in May. This month has been another step backward.

He entered Wednesday with 10 hits in 50 at-bats (.200 batting average) during June with three doubles, zero homers and a .476 OPS.

The three-time All-Star often counseled younger hitters about taking their walks to find themselves offensively. He’s totaled one walk in his previous 12 games.

“The one thing I’m not controlling very well right now is the strike zone,” Correa said. “Once I start doing a better job of that, then everything else will fall into place. I’m conscious of it. We’re working on drills about it. I wish I could tell you it’s easy to fix and I could do it overnight. It’s not.”

Correa, 30, has never posted an OPS below .709 in his last 10 big-league seasons, and his previous low came when he played while battling plantar fasciitis in his foot. His .278 on-base percentage this season is 73 points below his career average.

He’s disappointed with how he’s hit this year, naturally, but he says he wouldn’t call himself frustrated.

“The word ‘frustrating,’ I don’t know if I would use,” he said. “I’m process-oriented. I’m going to put in the work every day. I want to perform for the team. I want us to win as many games, and I know when I’m playing my best baseball, especially hitting at my best, we’ve got great chances to win every night. But at the same time, what I love about baseball is the ”figure it out” part.

“I wake up in the morning after an 0-for-4 day, I’m like, ‘What’s in store for today in the cage? How can we get out of it?’ And then when you get out of it, it’s so beautiful that it’s all worth it.”

Twins coaches remain confident in Correa. Baldelli noted he was an All-Star last year and that he’s probably “in a better spot” physically than he was at the end of last season.

“As bad as it may look, you’ll never see me throwing my helmet away and showing that frustration, because my kids are watching and they’ve got to understand that failure is part of the sport,” Correa said. “Tough times are going to come in this sport. Nobody is exempt from that, unless you’re [Aaron] Judge or [Shohei] Ohtani.

“You’ve just got to deal with it, figure it out and put in the work. That’s what excites me about this game. Until the day I retire, it’s going to keep getting me up every morning, the fact that I’ve got to figure it out.”

Ryan Jeffers was out of the Twins lineup Wednesday, one day after he exited a game with a bruised right hand following a foul ball.

There was initial optimism he could start after X-rays didn’t reveal a fracture, but he had trouble taking comfortable swings in the batting cage.

“It swelled up pretty bad,” Jeffers said. “Just super painful. The pain was probably too much to keep playing. But no break. Grip strength is fine.”

The Twins view Jeffers’ injury strictly as day-to-day, and there haven’t been any considerations to putting him on the injured list.