Minnesota Twins catcher Victor Caratini settles into role of strike zone master

Minnesota Twins catcher Victor Caratini is a master of the strike zone. He's one of the best in baseball at using replay to turn balls into strikes. 

On Sunday, he successfully challenged three times in the first inning alone, producing two strikeouts for his pitcher.

"I mean he's great. I think we've got two of the best catchers in the league with it," said starting pitcher Taj Bradley. "Even the first strikeout of the game, he's calling the corner. He looked at me to see if it was a strike, I'm like, 'I don't know, call it.' I was just excited about that one. So it's just getting us more strikeouts, more early aheads and getting us back more advantage counts for the pitchers."

Though he was slumping at the plate earlier in the year, Caratini's bat has heated up since late May.

"Just been working with the hitting coaches," Caratini said. "Put in the work before the game and I think all the results are coming."

Ryan Jeffers broke his wrist a month ago. Since then, Caratini's presence defensively — working with pitchers, at the plate and in the clubhouse — is being felt in a major way.

"We knew when we acquired him that he could do so many things," said Twins manager Derek Shelton. "Early in the season he played first base, which was really important for us. When Jeffers got hurt, he's gone into the primary catcher role. I think we've seen over the last couple nights the ability to have pinch hits, the ability to have some steadiness to him is really important in our room."