In the Minnesota Twins’ 94 losses this season, this has to be among the worst. Ervin Santana left the game with a 1-0 lead after throwing 7.0 innings, but didn’t get a decision. Byron Buxton hit a go-ahead homer in the 11th inning, but the Twins didn’t get the win.
“It’s tough,” Buxton told the Star Tribune. “[Santana] pitched an excellent game. And just to come up short like that we did, it hurts. You go out there and play hard and things don’t go our way, [but] stuff like that happens.”
Curtis Granderson, who hit the tying home run in the 11th inning off of Brandon Kintzler to spoil Santana’s night, took Ryan O’Rourke deep in the 12th to win it for the New York Mets. Granderson was hitting .213 against left-handed pitchers at the time; left-handed hitters were 0-for-18 against O’Rourke before the at-bat.
“I threw my best,” O’Rourke told the Star Tribune, “and he beat me.”
“He never gets down,” Mets manager Terry Collins told the Associated Press. “He’s never down. He’s the same guy every day. He’s dangerous.”
“You look for the ability to win those close games when you take leads, and we gave up one run in the eighth and Granderson just had a big night,” Molitor told the Star Tribune.
“It’s tough. Those guys battled. The offense hasn’t been there the last couple of nights when we have pitched well enough to win.’’
[Star Tribune, Associated Press]
