MINNEAPOLIS _ After 94 games, the Twins are officially in a slump.
Dominic Smith smacked a pinch-hit, go-ahead home run in the seventh, Home Run Derby champ Pete Alonso hit the longest Target Field home run of the season in the eighth, and the Twins made two costly errors resulting in seven unearned runs. The result was an embarrassing 14-4 loss to the Mets, and Minnesota's first three-game losing streak of 2019.
The Twins had been unbeatable, 8-0 in the season's first half, after back-to-back losses, but that streak was buried under a blizzard of unearned runs, seven in all. Miguel Sano's throwing error in the fourth inning gave the Mets an extra out that they turned into a run, and when Eddie Rosario dropped Adeiny Hechavarria's fly ball on the warning track, two runs scored and the floodgates opened. The next three hitters all drove in runs, capped by Alonso's third-deck monster, and New York piled up six runs in the inning, and three more off utility infielder-turned-pitcher Ehire Adrianza in the ninth.
The mistakes made a laugher of a well-pitched game to that point. Jason Vargas beat the Twins for the ninth time in his career by limiting the Twins to three runs, including solo homers by Nelson Cruz and Mitch Garver, on five hits. Martin Perez was even better, giving the Twins six innings and holding the Mets to Amed Rosario's solo homer and the unearned run, which scored on a Todd Frazier double play.
But Trevor May relieved Perez in the seventh, and quickly found trouble. Rosario led off with a single, Hechavarria followed with a ground-rule double, and after a popup, Smith hit an 0-and-2 curveball into the right-field overhang, giving the Mets the lead for good.
