It took four hours, 15 minutes and two homeruns from the Grandy Man, Curtis Granderson, for the New York Mets to beat the Minnesota Twins 3 – 2 in 12 innings. It was the second of a three-game set that concludes on Sunday.
It was the same day that the New York Mets found out that they will be without ace right-handed pitcher Jacob deGrom for the rest of the year. He is expected to undergo surgery to repair the ulnar nerve in his right elbow. DeGrom underwent Tommy John surgery on that same elbow back in October 2010.
The Mets needed a boost on the field after this news and they found it for a sweet victory, which makes them 19 – 7 over their last 26 games. It’s an impressive stat that helped them move from the wild card race basement to the top of the heap, right alongside the San Francisco Giants, who lost their game last night. The St. Louis Cardinals are now two games back in the race and the Pittsburgh Pirates are five, but it only takes a few losses to change that picture completely around.
It was a night where a total of 16 pitchers took the mound, but the final player to take the bump was the Twins’ Ryan O’rourke, who threw to Granderson in the bottom of the 12th inning. After getting two outs and confident he was headed to the 13th, Curtis hit a long ball for the win. The Grandy Man had already extended the game with his game-tying homerun in the bottom of the 11th inning.
The loss hurt the Twins Ervin Santana’s stellar performance, striking out 9 and walking 2 in seven innings pitched. The New York Mets Seth Lugo pitched five innings, striking out two, walking four and allowing four hits. There were a total of four homeruns and five runs scored tonight, but it was the Twins who took the lead in the 4th inning. This was the only run that Seth Lugo allowed in five innings pitched in a non-decision. That 1 – 0 Twins lead lasted until the bottom of the 8thinning.
With a dousing on the post-game interview by Cespedes, The Grandy Man keeps the New York Mets in contention for the post-season wildcard spot. The Mets have hit 18 home runs in their last 11 games and 36 in their last 21 contests and, amazingly, the Mets are 69-37 when they homer.
According to the New York Mets, Granderson became the first player in franchise history to hit a pair of home runs in extra innings in the same game. Only two other players in the last 25 seasons homered twice in a game in extra-innings, and both did so in 2013.
The Mets have now won six straight games vs. the Twins dating to June 27, 2010, which is the club’s longest winning streak vs. Minnesota. However, New York has never swept the Twins in a three-game series. Minnesota Twins right-handed pitcher Kyle Gibson comes off one of his best starts of the season, as he limited the Tigers to one run over eight innings in a victory. The right-hander scattered five hits and three walks with four strikeouts. He goes against New York Mets right-handed pitcher Gabriel Ynoa who is stepping on the major league mound for the first time as a starter on Sunday against the Twins in place of Jacob deGrom.
He made his major league debut on August 13 vs. San Diego and pitched 1.0 scoreless inning to pick up the win in relief. Prior to that appearance, the last Mets reliever to win in his ML debut was Kenny Greer on September 29, 1993 vs. St. Louis. Ynoa was 12-5 with a 3.97 ERA in 25 starts for Las Vegas (AAA) this year.
Side note: Curtis Granderson will receive the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award sponsored by the Phi Delta Theta International Fraternity at a press conference at 3:30 p.m. at CitiField on Monday, September 19. The award is given annually to a Major League player who best exemplifies the giving character of Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, a member of the Fraternity’s Columbia University chapter.
