Twins fall to Mets 15-2 as New York excels on offense and defense

NEW YORK — The Mets weren’t content to simply string together single after walk after single after double to plaster Twins pitching with a season-worst 15 runs. No, they had to subtract from the Twins as well.

New York battered Twins pitching by cracking 17 hits, drawing seven walks and spreading RBI among eight of its hitters. And when a 10-run lead was too narrow for the Mets to coast home, right fielder Tyrone Taylor reached over Citi Field’s padded fence and prevented Ryan Jeffers’ would-be home run from leaving the park.

“When you’ve been really grinding and you feel good, you want that homer so bad,” Jeffers admitted. “So for him to rob that, I didn’t feel great.”

No one did in the visitors’ clubhouse, not after the Twins absorbed their most lopsided loss of the season, 15-2, to drop 5½ games back in the AL Central. The Twins took the lead on the fifth pitch of the game — Byron Buxton followed Manuel Margot’s leadoff double with an RBI single — and scored the night’s final run in the ninth, on Jeffers’ don’t-get-mad-get-even second-chance home run.

“I have to admit, to come back and get another one, I couldn’t ask for more,” Jeffers said with a smile.

In between? The Twins watched the Mets take batting practice against starter Simeon Woods Richardson, four relievers and outfielder Matt Wallner.

The latter “pitcher” — he went 3-0 and saved nine games as Southern Miss’ closer while in college but had not stepped on the mound as a professional — gave up an RBI double in the seventh inning but retired four hitters without allowing any more runs.

“I kept telling batters, trying to freak them out a little bit, they’d come to the plate and I said, ‘This kid hit 100 [mph] in college, just to let you know,’ " Jeffers said with a smile. “And then, here’s 39 [mph].”

But Wallner might have exerted less energy throwing those half-speed “sliders” than any outfielder on the roster because the players stationed on the grass spent inning after inning chasing down Mets hits, fielding a whopping 24 batted balls in all. They didn’t have to move when Pete Alonso launched a 400-foot blast into the second deck in left field to lead off the fourth inning against Woods Richardson, who had shut out the Mets to that point, but it got really hectic after that.

The next six Mets reached base before Woods Richardson retired a hitter, Brandon Nimmo on a sacrifice fly to right field. His pitch count at 36 for the inning and 81 for the game, Woods Richardson was mercifully pulled at that point.

BOXSCORE: New York Mets 15, Twins 2

It’s not as if he were getting hammered, Woods Richardson pointed out with a shrug. Alonso’s 21st homer aside, no Met hit a ball 100 mph against the Twins rookie.

“That’s how baseball works sometimes. They’re a team that doesn’t strike out much, [and] that was the result tonight,” Woods Richardson said. “Death by 1,000 cuts. I’m OK knowing I did everything I could to produce soft contact.”

“He got singled to death,” Jeffers summed up.

After that six-run fourth, New York tacked on a five-run sixth and a four-run seventh, with the Mets’ 25 batters to reach base safely the most the Twin have allowed this year. Josh Staumont gave up five runs and recorded only one out, and Brock Stewart gave up four more while recording only two outs.

Meanwhile, the Twins could do little against Mets lefthander Jose Quintana, who after serving up that game-opening run never allowed another Twin to reach third base during his six-inning start.