Simeon Woods Richardson fanned a career-high eight in six scoreless innings, and Carlos Correa hit a run-scoring double and scored the go-ahead run as the Twins beat the Seattle Mariners, 3-1, Monday in front of an announced crowd of 14,384 at Target Field.

Woods Richardson fanned seven in his first three innings, tying his previous career high, and set a new mark when he got former Twins catcher Mitch Garver swinging in the fifth as the Twins beat the American League West-leading Mariners to start a four-game series.

Christian Vazquez and Manuel Margot each had RBIs in the seventh inning as the Twins broke open a 1-1 game to win for the 13th time in 14 games. The Twins had their 12-game winning streak ended with a 7-2 loss to Boston on Sunday.

Jhoan Duran pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning, and Caleb Thielbar pitched the ninth for his third save.

Facing Mariners ace Luis Castillo, the Twins got a break to start the fifth and made the Mariners pay. Kepler started the inning with a grounder to second base, and Jorge Polanco fielded it cleanly. But first baseman Ty France whiffed on the catch, and Kepler wound up at second.

Correa followed with a double off the scoreboard in right-center to score Kepler and make it 1-0 Twins.

The Mariners got that run back in the seventh inning off reliever Griffin Jax. Polanco, playing his first game at Target Field since being traded to Seattle on Jan. 29, fisted a slow liner into right to start the inning, and moved to third when Mitch Hanigar singled up the middle.

Jax walked Cal Raleigh to load the bases but immediately struck out France. Garver followed with a sacrifice fly to deep center to tie the game 1-1 before Jax fanned Luke Raley to end the inning.

The Twins retook the lead off Castillo. Kepler drew a walk to start the inning before Correa, after falling behind 0-2, hammered a 3-2 fastball into left field for a double to put runners at second and third.

Willi Castro then grounded to first, and France immediately threw to third to cut off the go-ahead run. But Kepler got into a rundown, and Correa moved to third and Castro second before he was tagged out.

Castillo then intentionally walked lefty Carlos Santana to get to right-hander Christian Vazquez, who hit a long sacrifice fly to the warning track in right-center to score Correa and make it 2-1.

That was it for Castillo, who made way for right-hander Trent Thornton. He fell behind Manuel Margot 3-0 before giving up a singled that scored Castro to make it 3-1.

Minnesota nearly paid the ultimate price for ending the Professional Women’s Hockey League season on a five-game losing streak, backing into the playoffs when Ottawa lost on Sunday night in the final game of the league schedule.

Now it has new life — and the challenge of facing regular-season champion Toronto in a best-of-five series that begins Wednesday in Toronto.

Rather than following the traditional format of 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in the playoffs, the PWHL gave Toronto the choice of playing either third-place Boston or fourth-place Minnesota.

Minnesota coach Ken Klee said he expected to face Toronto, and doesn’t look at the choice as something that will provide any extra motivation for his team.

“For me it’s as easy as who has the toughest travel,” Klee said. “We’ve had the toughest travel the entire year. It’s no secret; I’m sure any team would agree with that. If I was them, I would say, ‘Who has the furthest to come and has the toughest travel to get here.”

Toronto general manager Gina Kingsbury said a lot of factors went into the decision.

“The process started a long time ago,” she said. “When we clinched first place we started those discussions on the hypotheticals in who that might be that we got to choose from.

“It was not an easy decision. There is no easy opponent in this league. We talked to our leadership group, we leaned on our athletes — how they feel against all these opponents. I
looked at how we matched up with these teams throughout the season. You always want to look at the more recency of the teams and how they’re doing in this time frame of the season. Are they healthy? Are they banged up? The travel came into play. You weigh everything.”

Toronto finished with 47 points, 12 more than Minnesota. The teams met four times during the regular season. Minnesota won the first meeting, 3-1, on January 10 at Xcel Energy Center before dropping the final three.

Toronto lost four of its first five games of the season before going on an 11-game winning streak that stretched from Jan. 26 to March 20.

“To go through an 11-game winning streak in the middle of the season after starting out so poorly was something we were really proud of,” Toronto captain Blayre Turnbull said. “From that, we were able to gain a lot of confidence.

“But as we gained confidence we felt like we still had so much to prove and so many areas we can get better in. Despite going on such a great winning streak, we approached every game as if we had more and more to prove, and I think that’s how we ended up in the position we are now.”

To that end, Toronto will not take any opponent lightly, especially a team in Minnesota that is eager to get back to its winning ways.

“They have two great goaltenders, who both have had great seasons,” Turnbull said. “They have some really good defensemen, and obviously, we know how offensive their biggest threats are.

“Kendall (Coyne Schofield) is extremely fast and she has been scoring a lot lately. Taylor Heise is such a natural goal scorer and offensive threat, too. They’ve got some star players who I’m sure will be really excited to face us, and they’ll bring their best games in the playoffs.”