NEW YORK _ Moments after general manager Sandy Alderson announced Saturday that pitcher Jacob deGrom would miss Sunday's scheduled start and most likely the rest of the season because of continuing soreness in his pitching elbow, Mets manager Terry Collins declared that Sunday's game would be handled by a bevy of bullpen arms.
Then Collins was forced to use up a bunch of those bullpen arms in Saturday night's 3-2, 12-inning victory over the Minnesota Twins at Citi Field.
By the time it was all over, Collins had used seven relievers after starter Seth Lugo could only go five innings.
Curtis Granderson saved Collins from needing to use any more bullpen arms when his second extra-inning homer, with two outs in the 12th, delivered the victory.
The winning homer came off left-hander Ryan O'Rourke, but it wouldn't have happened had Granderson not hit his first homer of the game an inning earlier, to rescue the Mets from a 2-1 loss.
Byron Buxton had led off the top of the 11th inning with a mammoth homer to left off Hansel Robles, who was starting his second inning of work.
But Granderson led off the bottom of the inning with his 27th homer, an opposite-field shot against Minnesota closer Brandon Kintzler, to tie it at 2-2. Then, after a pair of singles and a hit batsman loaded the bases with two outs, it was the Mets' turn to look like inevitable winners. But Jose Reyes struck out looking on the ninth pitch of the at-bat to send the game to the 12th.
With the win, the Mets gained ground in the wild-card race, with San Francisco and St. Louis playing one another late.
Ervin Santana blanked the Mets for seven innings, but when he left, the Mets quickly tied the game in the eighth. Reyes, who had popped to third twice and struck out looking against Santana, led off the inning with a line-drive single to center off reliever Ryan Pressly, then took second on a wild pitch. A groundout to second by Asdrubal Cabrera advanced Reyes to third, and Yoenis Cespedes tied the game with a single to center.
But just when it seemed the sad-sack Twins would remember their position in the standings and crumble to another crushing loss, lefthander Taylor Rogers came on to replace Pressly and struck out lefthanded sluggers Granderson and Jay Bruce to end the inning. Mets closer Jeurys Familia worked a scoreless top of the ninth (albeit needing 24 pitches to do it) and the Mets went down meekly in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.
Lugo struggled through five innings, but did enough to keep the Mets within one run of the lead despite the fact that they were being dominated by Santana. Lugo, who entered the game having won his previous four starts and carrying a 4-1 record, with a 2.27 ERA, in five starts since joining the starting rotation, gave up a single in the first and third innings and had to work around two walks in the second.
In the fourth, the Twins got on the board when Eddie Rosario belted a 2-and-2 pitch into the right-field seats for his 10th home run of the season to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead. Byron Buxton followed that with a slow roller up the third-base line for an infield hit, and Lugo walked Juan Centeno to put runners on first and second with one out. A sacrifice by Santana moved the runners up, then Lugo went 3-and-0 on leadoff man Brian Dozier, he of the 41 home runs.
Lugo recovered to strike out Dozier, blowing a 93-mph fastball by him for the third strike to end the inning without further damage.
But he was back in trouble again in the fifth, after a one-out walk to Jorge Polanco and a stolen base. He managed to wriggle out of trouble again, but with a pitch count of 91 through five innings, that was all for him. Kelly Johnson pinch hit in the bottom of the inning and lefty Josh Smoker took the mound in the sixth.
