Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon limited the Twins to just three singles in seven innings.
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Gabriel Ynoa struck out eight over 4 2/3 innings in his first major league start, Blevins got a four-out save and the New York Mets completed a three-game sweep with a 3-2 victory Sunday. Colon continued his remarkable 40-something surge Friday, when he picked up a win by throwing seven scoreless innings as the Mets maintained their lead in the race for the National League’s second wild card with a 3-0 victory over the Twins.
After Minnesota’s Byron Buxton hit a soaring homer for a 2-1 lead in the 11th, Granderson tied it 2-all leading off the bottom half against closer Brandon Kintzler.
Minnesota Twins left fielder Robbie Grossman (36) advances to third as New York Mets third baseman Kelly Johnson (55) is late with the tag during the eighth inning at Citi Field. Looking at it now, he’s got homers – he doesn’t have a lot of RBIs, but there’s a lot of reasons for it.
After appearing to be finished four weeks ago – the Mets were 60-62 and 5 1/2 games behind the second wild card Cardinals on August 19 – manager Terry Collins and his players are only concerned with qualifying for the wild card game.
“I think if I see that pitch in my mind a few months ago, I probably would have rolled it over”, said Conforto, who increased his 2016 slash line to a ghastly.218/.305/.407.
Granderson, who recorded his second multi-homer performance of the season, became the first player in Mets history to hit two extra-inning shots in the same game. He’s not in the mix for the Cy Young Award, but he is a huge reason that the Mets are sitting in a playoff spot with 15 games to play and only teams with losing records remaining on their schedule. But T.J. Rivera’s lead-off homer in the third regained a two-run lead for the Mets. Addison Reed threw a ideal eighth and Jeurys Familia secured his 49th save despite walking two in the ninth as the Mets (78-69) ensured they’d remain at least one game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals in the race for the second wild card.
Like the rest of the fans, Ynoa watched anxiously as the Mets (80-69) held on for their 20th win in 27 games and moved a season-high 11 games over.500.
“Obviously I want to be a regular player”, Conforto said.
Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera hit consecutive home runs against Berrios in the third, and Yoenis Cespedes added an RBI single in the seventh off Pat Light. That return never came, and the Mets lost Matt Harvey for the season, plus Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz for the past month and the past two weeks, respectively.
Collins said the Mets will turn to a “plethora” of relievers to get through Sunday’s game against the Twins. Mets 1B Lucas Duda was activated from the 15-day disabled list after missing nearly four months because of a lower back stress fracture. Molitor said “it didn’t look too good”.
Mets: Cabrera left after eight innings because of a right leg cramp but expects to play Saturday. deGrom (right forearm soreness) is scheduled to start Sunday and will be limited to 75 pitches in his first appearance since September 1.
And thus ends the good news part of this game recap.
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The Mets had Kyle Gibson on the ropes early. Juan Lagares, coming off left thumb surgery, played center field in the ninth, his first appearance since July 28.
