Despite injury exits from Matt Wallner in the bottom of the first inning and Carlos Correa in the bottom of the fifth, a revived offense and a solid start from Bailey Ober led the Twins to a 6-3 win against the New York Mets on Tuesday night at Target Field. The Twins’ record improved to 6-12.
Ober gave the Twins 6 ⅓ innings and allowed three earned runs on five hits while striking out five. Two of the runs charged to Ober were due to solo home runs, one from Pete Alonso in the first inning and the other from Juan Soto in the fourth. Cole Sands entered for Ober, induced a sacrifice fly of Jesse Winker, and walked Luisangel Acuña before getting Lindor to ground out to end the top half of the inning.
Griffin Jax pitched a scoreless eighth inning with one strikeout and a hit allowed, and Jhoan Duran earned the save in the ninth with the same stats.
Right-handed pitcher Trevor Megill started for the Mets and gave up four runs (two earned) on eight hits. Megill entered the matchup against the Twins with a 0.63 ERA across three starts this season.
Jeffers and Bader gave the Twins' offense a much-needed boost
Jeffers and Bader each collected three hits, Byron Buxton went 2-for-4 with a pair of singles, and Brooks Lee, who lined out sharply to shortstop Francisco Lindor after pinch-hitting for Correa in the fifth, gave the Twins a 6-3 lead on a solo home run off righty reliever Max Kranick, who allowed two runs on four hits in 1 ⅔ innings, in the seventh inning. Southpaw Danny Young pitched the remaining 1 ⅓ innings for New York.
Jeffers, who hit two doubles (one nearly a home run) in the Twins' 6-3 win, came into the matchup with the Mets on Tuesday with just three hits in his last 20 at-bats. After Tuesday's performance, his slash line jumped from .200/.263/.229 to .263/.333/.342.
Bader’s three hits, all singles, came from the ninth spot in the lineup. Bader, who collected an RBI and scored once on Tuesday, started the season hot at the plate, hitting .300/.323/.633 through April 8, but he failed to collect a hit in his last 13 at-bats before his three singles.
Eight Twins collected a hit on Tuesday. Wallner reached first base on a check swing single in the first inning before being removed with hamstring tightness. Carlos Correa notched a softly-hit RBI single up the middle in the third inning before exiting in the fifth with wrist soreness. There are no updates on the status of Wallner and Correa, but neither are in the Twins’ lineup in the series finale Wednesday.
Ty France proved putting the bat on the ball can lead to good things, reaching on a fielding error from Lindor in the third inning, allowing Bader to score, and reaching on a fielder’s choice in the fifth on a ground ball to Acuña, who threw the ball home as Buxton safely slid head first into the bag.
“That’s really fun when you see Buck doing stuff like that,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said to the media postgame. “Going on contact is something that we do and believe in. On that particular ball, there are not too many guys in the league that are going to be safe on that ball, but he outruns the whole play, and he’s safe. It’s exhilarating to watch him do that.”
Edouard Julien drove in the Twins’ fifth run of the game in the sixth inning on a sharp opposite-field single to left field.
Keirsey got his first hit of the season in the seventh inning on a line drive single to left.
The final game of the three-game set between the Twins and Mets is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. CST on Wednesday at Target Field.