Trailing Thunder enter Game 2 vs. Pacers with history of rebounding from losses

When the Oklahoma City Thunder get hit, they tend to hit back. Immediately, too.

MINNEAPOLIS — During three years together with the Minnesota Twins, Carlos Correa and David Popkins bonded over baseball and life. The superstar shortstop credits his former hitting coach, whom he calls “a lifetime friend,” with helping him in a number of ways, starting with taking the time to learn his various needs and how he needs to attack, and working within that framework.

“His energy is contagious,” Correa said. “He’s got great vibes in the cage, always dancing and singing, having a good time, so you don’t feel like you’re working. You don’t feel like you’re getting lectured. You don’t feel like he’s talking like he’s above you. You feel like you’re talking to a friend and that’s a great trait to have.”

Two games into a sneakily significant June clash with the Toronto Blue Jays, Correa can already see Popkins’ influence on his new team, which used a two-run homer from George Springer in the eighth inning to again rally past the Twins, 5-4 on Saturday afternoon.

“When you look at their lineup and you see a lot of guys who are overperforming, you probably didn’t expect them to perform that well, I’m like, well, he has something to do with that, for sure, working on their weaknesses and then try to have less holes at the plate,” said Correa. “That makes a tough out when you reduce those holes at the plate and you focus on your approach and every single guy in the lineup invests in committing to that approach.”

Starter Chris Paddack largely kept that approach in check Saturday, surrendering some hard contact but avoiding the type of high-impact blows that have been a staple of the Blue Jays’ recent surge.

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His closest call might have come in the first, when Nathan Lukes nearly timed up an 0-2 slider diving in on him and lifted it 393 feet barely foul down the right-field line. A ball later, Lukes lined an RBI single to right that opened the scoring, Tyler Heineman added a solo shot in the second and Paddack rallied to retire 13 of the next 15 batters to get through six with a 3-2 lead.

But after erasing an early 3-0 deficit in Friday’s series-opening 6-4 win, the Blue Jays completed their 19th comeback win of the season as Addison Barger opened the eighth inning with a double off Griffin Jax and Springer followed by sending 2-2 changeup 376 feet over the wall in left field.

“With the way we’re playing right now, you kind of expect it,” manager John Schneider said of his team’s propensity for comebacks. “I think the mindset is a little bit, freer, if that makes sense. And doing it against some tough pitching is really cool.”

With much of the Blue Jays relief corps spent after Friday’s bullpen game, rookie Braydon Fisher delivered a three-up, three-down eighth. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s RBI single in the ninth padded the edge and that came in handy as Jeff Hoffman surrendered a leadoff solo shot to Kody Clemens before locking down his 15th save.

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At 35-29, the Blue Jays are six games over .500 for the first time this season and have won four in a row, nine of their last 10 games and are 19-9 in their last 28 games.

“I don’t think we feel like we’re ever out of a game,” said Springer. “We understand each other. We trust each other. It’s one at-bat at a time. One pitch at a time. Don’t try to do too much. And you’re starting to see guys are controlling at-bats well and getting it onto the next guy.”

Kevin Gausman did the heavy lifting against his nemesis team – eight runs on 14 hits and six walks in 8.2 innings over two starts last year; a 6.61 ERA in 65.1 innings over 13 starts coming – by allowing three runs in six strong frames.

Two of the runs came in a messy fourth, when a full-count walk to Matt Wallner on a disputed splitter – Gausman angrily signalled to home plate umpire Chad Whitson that it was the second pitch he’d missed in the inning – set up Ty France’s run-scoring hit by pitch and Royce Lewis’ RBI walk. But Gausman limited the damage there by getting Clemens to hit into a 5-2-3 double play, although he surrendered Wallner’s go-ahead solo shot in the sixth.

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Still, given the bullpen’s situation and his history versus the Twins, Gausman’s outing was vital.

“My least liked organization, for sure,” he said with a grin. “It is personal, but nothing against anyone over there, they’ve just kind of kicked my butt a lot of my career. When I pitch against them, there’s a little bit extra kind of anger, I guess.”

Popkins’ may have helped to some degree in that regard, too, as after he was hired last fall, one of the questions manager John Schneider had for him is what the Twins had on Gausman, who also spoke to the hitting coach about it during spring training.

“The information that Pop has provided has been, really, really useful for Pete (Walker, the pitching coach) and for Kev,” said Schneider.

For Heineman, too, as he ran his ideas for how to pitch different Twins hitters past Popkins because “how they would probably try to game plan versus Gaus is a good tidbit of information to have,” said the catcher.

Anything beyond helping the offence is a bonus, and Popkins, along with returning assistant Hunter Mense and new assistant Lou Iannotti, has certainly done that.

“The biggest thing that we’ve seen is a very, very intentional message of don’t be afraid to take chances,” said Schneider. “You can see it. There aren’t many hitting coaches that I’ve been around where a guy swings and misses at a ball that may be a little bit marginal and Pop is excited. That just rubs off on everyone. Everyone does it a little bit differently. Really good hitting coaches recognize what people are good at. They don’t cookie-cut people and it’s been very evident from the time when he signed him that was going to be his message.”

It’s a message Correa and the Twins know very well, one the Blue Jays clearly are taking to right now.