Twins 5 Mets 2 (Target Field, Minneapolis, MN)
Mets record: 64-76
Mets streak: Lost 2
WP - Caleb Thielbar (3-1)
LP - Sean Reid-Foley (0-1)
SV - Jhoan Duran (25)
Seat on the Korner:
We select the star of the game and virtually invite him to a Seat on the Korner, just as Ralph Kiner used to do for his studio postgame show on WOR-channel 9 broadcasts in the early decades of the Mets.
The first pick in the 2017 draft is having a terrific rookie season, and he continued his success on Friday with two RBI doubles to lead the Twins to a 5-2 victory over the Mets.
Need to Know
Lewis' first RBI double gave the Twins a 1-0 lead in the first, and his second extended their lead to 4-2 in the 7th.
Carlos Correa also had a good night, homering in the 4th to tie the game off Kodai Senga, and doubling in the 7th inning.
The Mets' two runs came on Francisco Lindor's double in the 4th to briefly give the Mets a 2-1 lead.
Tonight marked the second game where Francisco Alvarez, Ronny Mauricio, Brett Baty, and Mark Vientos started in the same game.
With a strikeout of Willi Castro in the 4th inning, Kodai Senga passed Jerry Koosman for second all time in strikeouts by a Mets rookie with 179. (First place is outta sight: Doc Gooden had 276 K's in 1984.) Senga would finish with 181 K's on the season, with an opponents' batting average of .209 ...
Jhoan Duran got the save in the 9th. After walking Pete Alonso and shaking his arm after throwing a very wild pitch, Duran bounced back to strikeout Francisco Lindor and would proceed to get out of the inning unscathed.
Turning Point
The Mets had two opportunities to get Andrew Stevenson out on the same play in the 7th with the score tied at 2-2. First time was when Francisco Alvarez had him dead to rights at third, then Tim Locastro had him dead to rights at home immediately afterwards.
They were 0-for-2.
Sean Reid-Foley would wind up giving up three runs in that pivotal 7th inning.
Three Keys
Fighting with the fork.
This was one of those games where Kodai Senga had to fight without his best stuff, and he pitched well without it. The game was set up for Senga against a Twins team that was hitting a league worst .203 against off speed pitches. Senga, however, had a little trouble getting the dominant ghost fork pitch to be dominant for him.
But he knew how to use it as a decoy to work in and out of trouble as he gave up two runs in six innings even though he walked four and gave up four hits.
Hey, remember when Carlos Correa was a Met for ten minutes?
It hasn't been a great season for Correa, so you can say that the Mets dodged a bullet by listening to the recommendation of the doctors and turning him away after his medicals came in. But Twins fans gave him a Trea Turner-like smattering of applause when he came up in the first inning. It wasn't the raucous ovation that Turner got, but it seemed to be encouraging enough as Correa responded with a walk, homer, and double in the game.
Correa's home run was smacked at 114.2 mph.
The bats were stifled.
Two lefties who are in the middle of pretty remarkable comebacks helped shut the Mets down tonight. Dallas Keuchel, who pitched with three teams in 2021 and 2022 and whose ERA got horrifically worse with each of those teams, gave up three hits and two walks in five innings, striking out six hitters and having general success the way he has in his entire career, getting soft contact and frustrating hitters with his change of pace.
Caleb Theilbar, who didn't pitch in the majors between 2016 and 2019, struck out two in the 7th inning to get the victory. He's having an excellent season as his ERA lowered to 2.22 tonight with 25 strikeouts in 24 and 1/3 innings.
The Mets had four hits and three walks the entire night.