Pete Alonso hit two homers to back seven strong innings from Jacob deGrom, leading the Mets to a 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks in Citi Field Monday night. With the win, the Mets moved to within a game-and-a-half of the D’Backs in the Wild Card race.
After yesterday’s demoralizing pitching effort, it was more of a treat than usual to watch deGrom perform. He struck out 11 batters and allowed just three hits. The only blemish on his evening was when he served up a gopher ball to fan favorite Wilmer Flores for Arizona’s only run. But Flores fell down twice in attempts to field balls hit in his vicinity, so we got that reminder of his time here, as well.
Alonso homered in the first inning to give deGrom an early lead and he also left the yard in the fifth. He now has 47 homers on the year to go with 109 RBIs. The team record for RBIs in a season is 124, done by Mike Piazza in 1999 and tied by David Wright in 2008.
Seth Lugo pitched for the first time in four days and was lights out. He struck out four of the six batters he faced and his curve looked better than it has in several appearances.
This is a nice reminder of what happens when your pen does what it is supposed to do. Another fine outing by Jake who might have a Cy Young repeat if he can win his last 3-4 starts. Alonso is a shoe in for ROY and might lead the league in HRs. McNeil might get the NL batting crown. If we only had the ten more wins we should have had at this stage what a year it might have been. Almost need to sweep the DBacks for a shot at getting close enough but stranger things have happened. Almost forgot JD and Reg great season he is having. Much to be thankful for. Keep the faith.