Carlos Correa homered and doubled to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 5-2 victory over the New York Mets in the opening game of a three-game series on Friday night in Minneapolis.

Royce Lewis went 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs and a run for Minnesota (74-67), which maintained its 6 1/2-game American League Central lead over the Guardians. Cleveland (68-74) beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-3 later Friday night.

Caleb Thielbar (3-1) pitched a scoreless inning of relief with two strikeouts to pick up the win. Jhoan Duran also struck out two while pitching around a leadoff walk in the ninth to garner his 25th save.

Francisco Lindor's ground-rule double drove in two runs and Pete Alonso also doubled and walked for New York (64-76). Sean Reid-Foley (0-1) took the loss after allowing three runs on two hits and a walk in two-thirds of an inning.

Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Jorge Polanco walked and scored on Lewis' double down the left field line.

New York took a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning. Francisco Alvarez led off with a walk and advanced to third on Alonso's line-drive double off the bottom of the left field wall. Lindor then drove in both runners with a ground-rule double down the right field line.

The Twins tied it 2-2 in the bottom of the fourth on Correa's 18th home run of the season, a 439-foot line drive into the second deck in left-center that had an exit velocity of 114.2 mph.

Minnesota parlayed four hits and a walk into three runs and a 5-2 lead in the seventh. Matt Wallner led off with a walk and pinch runner Andrew Stevenson advanced to second on an infield single by Willi Castro.

Stevenson scored the go-ahead run on a double steal when Alvarez threw wildly past third for an error. Two outs later, Lewis lined a double off the center field fence to drive in Castro. Max Kepler then singled in Lewis.

--Field Level Media