With infielders Royce Lewis and Willi Castro back in the lineup after injury absences Tuesday, manager Rocco Baldelli was asked if he might give veteran shortstop Carlos Correa a few more days off over the coming weeks.

Correa entered Tuesday night’s game against Baltimore struggling to get comfortable at the plate, hitting .216 with one home run and nine runs batted in over 34 games. But Baldelli said he didn’t have plans to get the three-time all-star extra time off.

“Not really,” he said. “I think he finds himself by playing, not by getting days off.”

Correa looked awfully comfy batting on Tuesday, going 3 for 4 with a home run and three RBIs in the Twins’ 9-1 victory in front of an announced crowd of 19,779.

His two-run homer off Orioles left-hander Cade Povich (1-3) traveled an estimated 458 feet at 109 mph and gave the Twins a 5-0 lead, ending the scoring in a five-run third inning that included a two-run single by Ryan Jeffers against a drawn-in infield, and a run-scoring double by Byron Buxton as the Twins earned their third straight victory.

“Fun. Fun. It’s what I live for,” Correa said. “You have some bad games and then you go back to work the next day, trying to figure it out. That’s what drives me as a baseball player. Every day, you get to give your team a chance to win the game, and it just feels better when the results are coming. I just want it to keep going.”

Buxton added a three-run home run on Matt Bowman’s second pitch in relief in the seventh inning, scoring Jonah Bride (who reached on third baseman Coby Mayo’s second error of the night) and Castro (walk) to make it 8-1.

Correa singled home Ty France in the seventh to make it 9-1. His only unproductive at-bat was in the sixth, when he was rung up looking on a low pitch out of the zone.

“A lot of work, a lot of emphasis on a lot of things,” Correa explained. “To see me putting into it deeper into working the game, it was great. It’s probably the most I’ve done in the last five years of my career in practice. Definitely more than the past five years.”

Meanwhile, Twins starter Pablo López (3-2) was dealing. Mixing in a second changeup, the right-hander fanned seven of the first 10 batters he faced and finished with 11 strikeouts in five innings. He didn’t pitch any longer because he had thrown 98 pitches, allowing one earned run on two hits and a walk.

“It was about staying convicted on the mound,” López said. “You look at the 11 strikeouts and they’re nice. I didn’t get the length that I like to provide the team, but a lot of times you’ve got to take what the game gives you. I just try to be on the mound competing.”

It was the 10th time in López’s career he struck out at least 10. Danny Coulombe, Louie Varland, Cole Sands and Jorge Alcala each pitched a scoreless inning in relief. All told, five Twins pitchers fanned a combined 17 batters, a season-high.

“Our pitchers have been doing an amazing job of keeping us in games,” said Tuesday’s catcher Jeffers. “Us as an offense haven’t been nails with scoring enough runs to win baseball games. But I think we’re really close, and we’ve been showing what we can do.”

Correa’s longest home run traveled an estimated 474 feet, also against Baltimore, at Camden Yards when he was with the Houston Astros in 2019. It remains the longest homer ever recorded by StatCast at Oriole Park.