SAN FRANCISCO — Christian Vázquez is known to take ground balls at third base from time to time, keeping his glove sharp there in the unlikely scenario that he is ever needed to man the hot corner.

That day came on Saturday.

Shortstop Carlos Correa was scratched shortly before the game with a right heel contusion, and with Jose Miranda dealing with low back tightness and Kyle Farmer landing on the injured list on Friday, the Twins were thin on infield options.

Willi Castro was originally supposed to play second with Brooks Lee at third, but when Correa was taken out of the starting lineup, Castro shifted to short and Lee to second, leaving Vázquez at third for his first career start.

Coming into Saturday, he had made 11 appearances there — including once this season already — across 19 1/3 innings, but never a start. The last time he started at the position before Saturday was Sept. 3, 2009.

“I bet you he could do it, and we’ll see him over there probably at some point over 162,” manager Rocco Baldelli said in March. “I would actually say it’s more than likely that he goes over there to third base at some point in some game for some reason. But he’s got good infield traits.”

Miranda, meanwhile, missed his second straight game after his back locked up on him pregame on Friday.

Baldelli said Friday night that they were not looking at it as “some sort of long-term major issue.” On Saturday morning, he said Miranda still hadn’t started swinging.

“Really we only found out about this before the game (Friday), so in some ways, we’re still kind of reading just exactly where he’s at and what he might be capable of,” Baldelli said.

Keaschall steps in

Lee was supposed to playing in the Futures Game, featured amongst the best prospects in Minor League Baseball.

Instead, Lee, now is 10 games into his major league career, off to as productive start of a start as the Twins could have hoped for, and so he was replaced on the roster by Luke Keaschall, who went 0 for 1 in the Futures Game on Saturday in Arlington, Texas.

Keaschall, drafted by the Twins in the second round last season, is very worthy of the honor, hitting .327 with a .945 OPS across Class-A Advanced and Double-A this season. He has 102 hits in 84 games, including 11 home runs and 21 doubles.

The 21-year-old, who is currently ranked as the Twins’ No. 5 prospect per MLB Pipeline, has primarily played a mix of second base and center field this season.

“The way he’s wired, he walks away from you and you think ‘That guy’s going to play in the big leagues.’ Because he’s free-minded, he doesn’t have a lot of clutter in his brain, he’s fearless, he can handle failure,” Twins vice president of amateur scouting Sean Johnson said. “Just a tough kid who’s also super humble. But on the field he’s an animal.”

Briefly

Chris Paddack will take the ball on Sunday in the final game of the first half. He will be opposed by Blake Snell, who won the National League Cy Young Award last season, but is 0-3 with a 7.85 earned-run average, sandwiched around two stints on the injured list. The two were rotation-mates for the 2021 San Diego Padres.

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