Mark Vientos went from goat to hero in a matter of two innings in the Mets’ 3-2 win over the Twins on Wednesday night that ended a 12-game losing streak.

First, Vientos made an eye-popping baserunning mistake, running through third base coach Tim Leiper’s stop sign on a Marcus Semien double to the gap in the sixth inning of a tie game.

He was thrown out by a considerable margin to end the inning.

But in the bottom of the eighth, Vientos delivered the go-ahead single, a flare to right that scored Brett Baty.

“I’m glad he got that hit,’’ Carlos Mendoza said with a smile.

Vientos made no apologies for his gaffe on the bases.

“My instinct was once the ball was off the wall, I was gonna score,’’ Vientos said.

Vientos, part of a lineup that has floundered for much of the season, said he saw Leiper put up the stop sign but ignored it.

“We want to make the right play, but I’m always gonna be aggressive,’’ Vientos said. “I’m not gonna play passive on the field. I’d rather make a mistake aggressively than [passively].’’

After flopping as the closer for the Yankees a year ago, Devin Williams looks to be doing the same thing on the other side of town this season.

But even after a three-appearance stretch in which he allowed seven runs, four walks and six hits in just 1 ¹/₃ innings while blowing a save and taking the loss in another, Mendoza said Wednesday he is not considering pulling Williams from the role.

“I know he’s going through it right now, but as I’m sitting here, we haven’t had that discussion,’’ Mendoza said prior to the Mets win.

Williams, who had pitched twice in three days, was unavailable Wednesday, so Luke Weaver got the final four outs.

Asked why he remains confident that Williams — who was pulled from the ninth-inning job in late April with the Yankees and then again in August — can overcome his current struggles, Mendoza said, “He’s done it before.”

Still, after Williams was yanked as closer in the second half of last season and had some success in a setup role, he didn’t get it back.

But Mendoza hasn’t given up on Williams, who signed a three-year, $51 million deal in the offseason even after his rough showing in The Bronx.

“It’s the nature of the business,’’ Mendoza said of Williams’ recent poor results. “You’re gonna go through stretches when it’s hard and you find a way to get back on track. There’s gonna be adversity, [there’s] gonna be stretches you’re not at your best and he’s done that before a few times. That’s what gives me confidence he’ll get there again.”

A.J. Minter continued his rehab assignment Wednesday with his first appearance with Triple-A Syracuse, as the lefty comes back from lat surgery that cost him most of 2025.

He allowed three hits and a run in his one inning and didn’t strike out or walk any batters.

Mendoza said Tuesday that the 32-year-old would likely need two more weeks of rehab games to get accustomed to pitching on back-to-back days again.

Austin Warren was still stunned Wednesday about the odd reaction he got from the small number of fans that remained at Citi Field in the ninth inning of Tuesday night’s loss, when the right-hander replaced Williams with the bases loaded and left them stranded by striking out the next three batters.

The crowd repeatedly chanted “MVP” as Warren piled up the strikeouts and kept it a two-run game.

“I was absolutely [surprised],’’ Warren said. “I’m sure everyone heard all the boos and I’m glad I could go in there and flip the switch a little bit and keep them on our side.”

The cheers began as soon as the threw a strike to Royce Lewis.

“I was like, ‘What’s going on?’’ Warren said. “I’m glad it went well and I could strand runners for Devin.”

The 30-year-old right-hander is in his second year with the Mets after being claimed off waivers from the Giants prior to last season.

“I feel I proved some people wrong with that kind of game,’’ Warren said. “I’ve always been an up-and-down [to the minors] guy since my debut. It sucks losing, but it feels good to do that.”

This season, outside of a couple hiccups, has gotten off to an excellent start for the D-Backs. After a three-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers to open season, the team has reeled off a 13-7 record and lost consecutive games just once to the major league leading Atlanta Braves. But these last two games have been pretty ugly – particularly on the pitching side as they allowed 21 runs and the starters pitched less than five innings total while allowing 16 runs. Even for an offense that has shown an ability to score runs in bunches with a joyful dynamism, that kind of run differential is difficult to overcome. It’s also forced the team’s bullpen to cover an absurd number of innings as a result. So the D-Backs were hoping to reverse both of those trends against a (nominally) weaker opponent in the White Sox, but instead the pitching continued to struggle to contain a surprisingly feisty Chicago offense and instead had to be bailed out by an excellent offensive output.

Eduardo Rodriguez has been a particular bright spot in a pitching staff that has been surprisingly resilient so far. Of course, the bar to clear for the veteran is essentially underground given his combined 5.02 ERA and 1.534 WHIP since signing as a free agent before the 2024 season. But ever since his excellent World Baseball Classic run with Team Venezuela, Rodriguez has been on another level, working to a 1.96 ERA and 1.217 WHIP through his first four starts. There were definitely some worrying signs underneath those surface numbers – including a 4.22 FIP and 4.19 expected ERA – but I was willing to overlook them as long as he limited the baserunners and home runs. Unfortunately, neither of those results were meant to be on Wednesday evening as he walked three batters and gave up two home runs, limiting his outing to just five innings and looking much more like the pitcher who struggled through the last two seasons than the one who dominated in the WBC.

In fairness, it was not a banner day for any of the pitchers on the field today. The two offenses combined to score 18 runs on 28 hits, secured 11 walks, and struck out just 13 times for the game. In the entire game, there was exactly one half inning (the visiting half of the second) that didn’t feature at least one baserunner. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that tonight’s matchup was the team’s second game of the season to stretch over three hours in duration and it felt like it. Every time one of the fanbases might have internally asked for a clean inning, they were quickly thwarted with any of the extra base hits that seemed to be falling for everyone in both lineups. There were just three starters on each team respectively that failed to secure at least one hit in the game.

Thankfully for Rodriguez and the pitching staff, the Arizona bats did not come to play around today. After Rodriguez’s rough first inning, the D-Backs quickly built a rally off a leadoff walk to Jose Fernandez, a Nolan Arenado single, and Ildemaro Vargas’ second three-run homer in as many nights. It was the first of three straight innings when the home team would score, eventually building a lead out to 8-4 going into the sixth inning. Those RBIs included another Vargas home run for two runs and a run-scoring single for Nolan Arenado – part of an incredible four-hit day with three RBIs.

Even after Rodriguez left the game, the White Sox consistently showed an impressive level of working counts and find ways to take good pitches either into the stands or for soft contact that extended the innings. There was little relaxation to be had as both Taylor Clarke and Ryan Thompson failed to keep the South Siders off the board and keep the game from becoming a laugher. Michael Soroka has been the (nearly) undisputed ace of the staff so far this year and should have an excellent opportunity to pick up his fifth victory on the young season.

Mark Vientos saw the stop sign. He admitted as much later, though, to hear him discuss the sixth-inning play on which he was thrown out at home by several feet in a tie game, the fact that he saw third base coach Tim Leiper hold his hands up did not strike Vientos as an admission at all.

“I was just following my instincts. Once I saw [Marcus Semien’s double] was hit off the wall, I was like, I’m gonna go score on that,” Vientos said. “Leip gave me the stop sign, but I followed my instincts and went home.”

As it happened, Vientos’ instincts did not doom the Mets, in large part because with runners on first and second and two out in the eighth, he wrestled an inside pitch into short right field to score Brett Baty with the eventual winning run.

“I’m glad he got that hit and redeemed himself,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said with a chuckle that felt appropriately nervous, given that Vientos made clear he would probably make the same choice again.

“Obviously, depending on the situation, we want to make the right play. But I’m always going to be aggressive. I’m not going to play passive on the baseball field,” Vientos said. “I’d rather make a mistake aggressive than passive.”

In some ways, the 2026 New York Mets are an example of that same philosophy: If the 2025 team sputtered out with the same old names, David Stearns was determined not to replicate last year’s failures this year. What the Mets must discern – now that their shoulders are free of that unfathomable losing streak -- is what parts of their current roster might eventually look like aggressive mistakes.

Wednesday night’s win did not happen because the Mets made drastic changes. Juan Soto’s return certainly helped, though it was quickly undermined by the departure of Francisco Lindor, who appeared to suffer nearly the same injury that sidelined Soto while scoring in the fourth.

It happened because the Mets, led by their manager, emphasized the need to trust track records as the present spiraled.

“You feel like you’re doing the right things. You evaluate things. You look around. People are doing what you should be doing,” Clay Holmes said after throwing seven strong innings. “You kind of really want to reach for something to do, but you’re already doing those things. Sometimes, that can be a little harder. You have to double down on the belief in yourself.”

Holmes, for example, tripled down on his sinker Wednesday, using it 73 percent of the time – almost as he might have in his days as a reliever. The righty is pitching to a 2.10 ERA in five starts this season.

But no one has been more stubborn than the Mets lineup, which has changed in terms of personnel even as it has committed to being aggressive through its slump. Mendoza said Wednesday that even though his lineup compiled the lowest on-base percentage in baseball, he was not clamoring for patience.

“It’s hard to get behind in counts here,” Mendoza said. “You have to be able to stay on the attack with good pitches in the strike zone.”

Quite obviously, little has changed because the Mets won Wednesday’s game 3-2. They still have the worst on-base percentage in baseball. Only two teams are swinging more frequently than they are. Only three are swinging at a higher percentage of pitches out of the zone. But last year’s team was baseball’s fifth-most patient and look where that got them. This year’s team will not make the same mistake.

Exactly what mistakes it will make now, after the baseball gods finally permitted them a win, remains to be seen. If Lindor is out for a significant period – and it is important to remember that Soto received what was considered a best-case diagnosis for a calf-related injury and still missed nearly three weeks – the Mets will have to wait even longer to see what the intended version of their lineup can produce.

But in the meantime, they will cross their fingers that Bichette can swing his way into a hot streak, that Vientos can turn a bloop into an offensive blaze, that two walks from Baty on Wednesday mean he is seeing the ball better…that everyone keeps doing what they would normally be doing in the hopes that better results must somehow follow.

“You have to stay positive. You can’t come to the ballpark expecting the worst, even if you’re going through a very rough stretch,” Mendoza said. “You come to the ballpark expecting good things to happen. And yes, it doesn’t matter how hard it is and how things are unfolding. Your mindset has to be expect something good to happen for us.”

No one should expect anything less than good things from the Mets, in whom Steve Cohen invested roughly $380 million this year. But when he chatted with reporters this week, he was careful to describe himself as “calm but concerned” in the only on-the-record comments he would offer, wary not to seem too worried nor too relaxed.

His roster is set. This team is in place. If a 12-game losing streak in April would be interpreted by some as a stop sign for championship dreams, the Mets seem resigned to ignore it. They are trusting their instincts, and those instincts are telling veteran members of their clubhouse that they are better than they have shown -- or at least, that if they are not as good as some believed, their best chance is to run past the red flags anyway.

On Tuesday, we talked about Cainings. The San Francisco Giants introduced Los Angeles Dodgers ace and international superstar Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the concept, with the most common type of Caining in existence. Call it the Standard Caining. In the Standard Caining, a pitcher has a very good game, but their offense doesn’t do enough. Because they had merely a very good game, rather than a great one, they’re rudely handed a loss when their incompetent offense fails to do their job.

Matt Cain, to pick a random name to use as an example, received a losing decision on 26 different occasions in which he pitched at least six innings while allowing two or fewer earned runs. Yamamoto’s impersonation was quite admirable, as the reigning World Series MVP pitched seven mostly-dominant innings but, thanks to a three-run first and a lifeless offense, received a notch in the L column.

Today, we talk about a less common variant of the Caining, one that the Giants introduced to Dodgers ace and international superstar Shohei Ohtani. Let’s call it an Advanced Caining. In the Advanced Caining, a pitcher goes above and beyond with not just a good game, but a great one. But the offense is, once again, inept. And eventually, the pitcher is forced to leave the game, leaving a bullpen to wear the blame when the magic runs out.

Matt Cain, to once again pick a random and arbitrary name to use as an example, had 17 different instances in which he pitched six or more innings, gave up zero or one runs, handed the bullpen a tie or a lead, and then watched, arms dangled over the railing, as the bullpen lost the game, and the offense did nothing to keep that outcome from occurring.

Ohtani now is intimately acquainted with an Advanced Caining which, admittedly, has an added flair to it when the pitcher getting Advanced Cained is also the designated hitter anchoring the offense doing the Advanced Caining. It’s a vicious cycle being both the Cainer and the Cainee. You’re not sure whether to feel victimized or guilty.

The two-way sensation had a game that, Giants fans will be loathe to admit, lived up to the hype. He struck out the side in the first inning, albeit working around two singles. He set down the side in order in the second, and then again in the third, and then once more for old time’s sake in the fourth. He cruised through the fifth.

It wasn’t until the sixth inning that Ohtani appeared to be in any sort of danger, and even then he dismissed of it easily. The Giants waited until there were two outs to try any sort of shenanigans, with Matt Chapman reaching on an infield single, and Rafael Devers smacking a double, his second hit of the day.

But Ohtani, still hitting triple digits even as his night neared an end, overpowered Casey Schmitt and ended the inning with emphasis.

It was his seventh strikeout of the game, which paired well with his zero walks. He’d thrown 23 pitches in excess of 99 mph. He’d given up just five hits. He hadn’t allowed a runner to score, earned or otherwise.

And none of it mattered. Because the Dodgers bullpen couldn’t maintain what he had accomplished. Because the Dodgers offense couldn’t match what he had thrown.

Because Tyler Mahle pitched better than Shohei Ohtani.

Because Patrick Bailey hit better than Shohei Ohtani.

A Caining requires a worthy adversary on the mound, and the Giants — despite what you would think entering the series — have provided that worthy adversary, first in the form of Landen Roupp, and next in the form of Mahle.

Mahle was excellent on Wednesday. He was beyond excellent. He was so good that someone in the comment section will be mad at me for mentioning Ohtani’s name five times before ever getting to Mahle’s, and that person will be right.

The veteran, whose debut season with the Giants had been a debacle prior to this game, not only matched Ohtani, but surpassed him. He threw the same number of pitches (91) as his opponent, but made it through seven innings, instead of six. He gave up the same number of baserunners (five), but none of them were extra-base hits. He faced a runner in scoring position in just two innings, and one was because Drew Gilbert took a truly atrocious route to a routine fly ball and instead let it fall for a single.

He had his help, mind you: Devers, Willy Adames, and Luis Arráez in particular had some standout defensive plays to keep the outs coming. But all great performances require a supporting cast, and Mahle’s showing was exactly that: greatness, with a fantastic supporting cast. And when you do that against the Dodgers, you earn some fans.

See, here’s Adames proving my point:

And here’s Arráez proving my point:

And ahh, what the hell, here’s Devers proving my point:

Pretty, ain’t it?

And so, as Mahle walked off the mound for the final time, as fans stretched and sang, we had been treated to two of the three components of the Advanced Caining: a great performance by a pitcher (Ohtani), and a great performance by an opposing pitcher (Mahle) in response.

All that was left was the third and final component: an offense eager to face anyone other than the star pitcher, and a bullpen prepared to waste a great start. And if it wasn’t clear to you until now, that offense was the Giants’, and that bullpen was the Dodgers’.

Southpaw Jack Dreyer replaced Ohtani, taking the mound for the bottom of the seventh inning in a scoreless game.

After two pitches, Jung Hoo Lee — who is not just heating up, but quietly starting to look a lot better against lefties — had started a rally with a leadoff single.

After two more pitches, Heliot Ramos — who, it seems, is fully back — knocked his second single of the day, putting runners at first and second with no outs.

Gilbert came to bat, and Bailey came onto the on-deck circle. As the camera cut to Bailey in-between pitches, you could see him look back at the dugout. You imagined he was wondering if his game would continue or not.

With Daniel Susac on the Injured List, pinch-hitting for Bailey is less straightforward, but I assumed the situation was simple: should Gilbert advance the runners, Bailey — who, despite being mired in the slump of all slumps, is reliably putting the ball in play and not striking out — would hit. Should Gilbert leave the runners where they are, Jerar Encarnación, with his high power but higher strikeouts, would enter the game.

Thankfully for Bailey, Gilbert did his part, laying down a smooth bunt that easily advanced Ramos to second and Lee to third. And with that, Bailey stepped to the plate, needing to just put the ball relatively halfway deep into the outfield to give the Giants the lead.

He took a first pitch slider for a strike, then watched as Dreyer spiked one in the dirt. A slider found the plate, and Bailey fouled it off. A second slider found the plate, and Bailey again fouled it off.

A third slider found the plate, and Bailey launched it into the bleachers.

It was a healing swing of the bat for someone who entered the game with zero extra-base hits, one run batted in, and three million calls to KNBR complaining about his lack of offense. A swing of the bat that reminded himself, his teammates, and his fans that he’s a better hitter than what we’ve seen over the first month of the season.

With a lead secured, the only thing left to do to complete the Advance Caining was to have the winning bullpen learn from the losing bullpen’s failures. And so Caleb Kilian took the mound for the eighth inning and worked around a leadoff single, retiring Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, and Will Smith. And Ryan Walker jogged out for the ninth, looking for his second dramatic save in as many days.

Walker got Freddie Freeman to fly the ball lazily to left for the first out. He got Teoscar Hernández to lift one to center, where it fell into Gilbert’s glove for the second out. He walked Max Muncy on four pitches, because why not.

And then, always with a love of theatrics and style points, Walker induced a weak chopper from Andy Pages, and played his own defensive hero for the third — and 27th — out.

Despite what the media may lead you to believe, Shohei Ohtani is not the only baseball player on the planet. There are other players, you know. Numerous others, if you can believe it. Players like Tyler Mahle. Players like Patrick Bailey. Players like Ryan Walker.

And those players won, 3-0.

Plenty of power. Not nearly enough pitching. That’s the story.

The White Sox jumped out exactly how you’d want them to do. Back-to-back singles from Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas in the top of the first set the tone, and even after Munetaka Murakami went down looking, the pressure didn’t let up. Everson Pereira and Edgar Quero worked consecutive walks to push across the first run, and Colson Montgomery followed with a productive at-bat. It wasn’t a hit thanks to a stellar play by Ketel Marte, but it plated Vargas for his 17th RBI of the season. Two runs without a ball leaving the yard. Sox up 2-0.

Montgomery flashed the glove in the bottom half, too, making a clean play on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. grounder to strand a Geraldo Perdomo triple and keep Anthony Kay out of immediate trouble. It was a reminder of just how steady he’s been defensively, already sitting near the top of the league in Outs Above Average amongst shortstops alongside names like Bobby Witt Jr. and Masyn Winn.

That was about where the control ended.

Kay never really found the zone, and the second inning unraveled quickly. A leadoff walk followed by a single set the table, and after another deep count, Arizona pounced. Ildemaro Vargas turned a 2-0 pitch into a three-run homer, flipping the game in one swing. The damage didn’t stop there, with a double, an RBI single from Corbin Carroll, and a run-scoring bunt by Perdomo stretched the lead and completely sucked the air out of Chicago’s early momentum.

To their credit, though, the bats kept swinging. Our Vargas continued his power surge in the third, launching a 428-foot homer for his third straight game, going deep.

But every answer the Sox had, the Diamondbacks matched and exceeded. Another blast from Arizona pushed the lead right back out, and while Eduardo Rodríguez had his moments of vulnerability, the Sox couldn’t fully capitalize.

Montgomery did his part, though. The shortstop stayed scorching hot in the fourth, crushing a 423-foot homer to right-center. It was his fourth straight game leaving the yard as he cut the deficit to 6-4, briefly making it feel like a game again.

Then came more pitching problems. Kay’s night effectively ended in the bottom of the fourth after a sequence that summed up his outing: a single, chaos on the bases from Carroll, and a balk that brought home a run. Jordan Hicks didn’t stop the bleeding, walking José Fernández and surrendering an RBI knock to Nolan Arenado to make it 8-4.

The Sox had chances, but they just couldn’t string enough together. Back-to-back singles from Murakami and Pereira in the fifth went nowhere. A manufactured run in the sixth, sparked by a Tristian Peters pinch-hit triple, and an Andrew Benintendi ground out, chipped into the lead slightly. But the South Side hurlers immediately gave back every inch gained.

Lucas Sims entered in the sixth and promptly allowed a two-run homer to Arenado. Sean Newcomb followed in the seventh and gave up back-to-back triples to Carroll and Perdomo.

The highlight, though, was another ridiculous showing from Murakami. The rookie crushed a 451-foot two-run homer in the seventh — his fifth straight game going deep, tying a franchise record — and later added a single in the ninth. He now sits at 10 home runs on the season and looks every bit like the real deal. Extend him NOW!

Unfortunately, in the end, it didn’t matter.

Down multiple runs all night, the Sox never fully threatened late. A small flicker in the ninth with Murakami reaching and Quero walking, bringing Montgomery to the plate with a chance to make it interesting. Instead, a 368-foot flyout to the warning track ended it.

The offense showed up. The power is real. There’s legitimate life in this lineup right now.

The pitching? That’s a different conversation entirely, and until it changes, games like this are going to keep slipping away.