NEW YORK – All these years later, the Twins can still hit Luis Severino.
Twins blast Mets 8-3 behind Pablo López’s pitching, homers from Byron Buxton and Matt Wallner
The Twins lost Max Kepler to a fluke play when he was hit on his helmet by a catcher’s throw.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
August 1, 2024 at 3:07AM
The Mets righthander, who was memorably knocked out of the Twins-Yankees wild-card playoff game in 2017 after facing only six batters and retiring just one, made it to the third inning this time before giving up a similar deluge of hits and runs.
Byron Buxton and Matt Wallner each homered and the Twins salvaged the finale of their three-game series Wednesday at Citi Field with an 8-3 rout of the Mets.
A happier ending than that long-ago night at Yankee Stadium, in other words.
“Felt good,” said Buxton, who played in that 2017 game. There had been “a little frustration, a little bit” over the first two games here, “but it’s easy to wash it away and let games like yesterday go. To be able to come back and wash it away is big.”
Pablo López was the recipient of all that offense, not that he needed it. The Twins’ righthander was tagged for an opposite-field, two-run homer to Mark Vientos in the second inning, but he allowed only one other hit over six innings and kept the Mets from advancing another runner to second base.
“I give up that homer, but then the guys just pick me right back up,” López said of his teammates, who piled up five runs in the third inning. “I was [thinking], ‘I’ve got to give them a shutdown inning’ ” after taking the lead. “Having a quick inning there really, really helped me and it transferred to the rest of the outing.”
The Twins, 5-for-38 with runners in scoring position in the previous five games of their road trip, collected four such hits on Wednesday, three of them in that five-run third inning against Severino, who owned a 2.88 ERA in his 11 previous starts at Citi Field this year.
Austin Martin, Trevor Larnach and Max Kepler each singled to open the inning, Royce Lewis doubled, and Wallner crushed a 442-foot home run to deep left-center, his sixth of the season.
Wallner hit another pitch, this one from reliever Tylor Megill, over the wall two innings later, but Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor, who robbed Ryan Jeffers of a home run on Monday, reached over the wall and deflected it back onto the field, and Wallner settled for an RBI double.
“I thought it was going to be just a flyout or a homer,” Wallner said. “I knew the wind was blowing out. I thought it had a chance for sure.”
Larnach saved a home run too, robbing Francisco Lindor with a well-timed leap at the wall in the first inning. “I think it’s my first one,” Larnach said.
Max Kepler was injured on an unusual play in the fourth inning. The Twins right fielder swung at a third strike from Megill and strode across the plate to head to the dugout. But he did so just as catcher Francisco Alvarez released a throw to second base, an effort to catch Twins shortstop Brooks Lee straying too far off the base.
Alvarez’s follow-through hit Kepler in the helmet and the ball went flying into the air. Umpire Scott Barry ruled the play interference, and called Lee out. The impact with Alvarez left Kepler with a bruise on his head, the Twins announced, and he was replaced by Manuel Margot.
“Max got smoked by the catcher on that very weird play,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, adding that Kepler had passed a concussion exam. “I’ve never seen anything like that. The umpire had never seen that call. I hope I never see it again.”
The game featured Randy Dobnak’s first appearance in a major-league game since Sept. 3, 2021. Dobnak, called up when Brock Stewart went on the injured list, faced five hitters in a scoreless eighth inning, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out one.
“It was pretty great to see him out there pitching. Everyone in our dugout was really fired up, myself included,” Baldelli said.
“You see a guy just put his head down, stay really positive, continue to work, put himself in a great opportunity to get back to the big leagues, and he’s out there pitching in a winning game at Citi Field for us today. I mean, it’s a pretty phenomenal day for Dobber and for everyone in that clubhouse.”
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