To beat Twins

Hits, Diaz struggles again

the way he was pitching, it looked like he would concede the Mets’ lead in a hurry. Gsellman walked the first batter he faced and hit the next. The right-hander got lucky when Marwin Gonzalez hit into a double play, but Gsellman again walked his next batter. Lefthander Luis Avilan bailed him out by ending the inning on a groundout to Eddie Rosario.

The Mets asked Familia to retire Schoop in a high-leverage situation. Familia fell behind in the count then spun a slider into the zone for strike one. With a runner on base, he got Schoop to groundout to short for the final out of the sixth.

Lugo showed off his arsenal, emerging as the bullpen’s most consistent relief pitcher on Tues. The righty took the hill in the eighth and maneuvered through the Twins lineup with ease. He struck out Cruz on four pitches then surrendered a firstpitch single. Lugo took a deep breath and retired the next two batters, including a dazzling strikeout to Max Kepler.

“To throw up five scoreless innings against that group up there, that says a lot,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said. “You knew they weren’t going to make it easy on you. They tried to do their best but Diaz held them off.”

The bullpen came, the bullpen saw and the bullpen conquered to the very last pitch, when Diaz battled to record his 21st save of the season.

“I felt great today,” Diaz said through interpreter Alan Suriel. “Today was one of those days where I was able to execute all my pitches, including the fastball and the slider.”

Diaz was cruising through the ninth when Jonathan Schoop left his 0-2 at-bat with an injury. The Mets closer gave up a walk and two singles to load the bases with two outs for Nelson Cruz. On the 33rd pitch of his outing, Diaz got Cruz to pop out to end the game.