Juan Lagares had a career day and the Mets established a Citi Field home run record as they pounded the Diamondbacks, 11-1, to earn a sweep of the four-game series. New York outscored Arizona, 26-4, in the four games and now hold a 1.5 game lead over the D’Backs in the Wild Card standings.
Lagares hit his first career grand slam in the third inning to give the Mets a 6-0 lead and he delivered a two-run, opposite-field blast in the fifth to give him his first career multiple-HR game.
The two homers by Lagares were part of a six-HR day for the Mets, the most ever hit by them in Citi Field. Todd Frazier continued his hot hitting with a solo homer in the second inning to get the HR barrage started. Robinson Cano and Tomas Nido added homers in the fifth and Michael Conforto hit his 30th bomb of the season in seventh, this one an upper deck shot.
Lost in the offensive outburst was the best pitching performance as a Met by Marcus Stroman. He threw six shutout innings before allowing a run in the seventh, by which time the Mets were up by 10 runs. He got nine ground ball outs, to go along with six strikeouts, in his 6.1 IP.
The Mets are now 12-10 in this streak of 25-straight games against teams above .500 for the season. But the hardest games are yet to come, with a three-game series against the Dodgers coming next.
Stroman looked like a different pitcher today. Even had a more deliberate pace and finally pitched like he did in Toronto getting tons of grounders and threw his slider as much as his fastball-throwing his slider 39% of the time as well as throwing his fastball that much and throwing his curve 21% and it too was very effective.
I kvetched about having both Lagares and Nido in there but they combined for three homers and Lagares has easily his best offensive game of his career.
Frazier is so hot right now and Cano looks like the Cano pre Mets since early July.
Also they rested Nimmo, McNeil and Ramos and scored 11 runs very impressive and shows how deep the offense is.
Thanks for remembering the fine job by Stroman and the D’Backs are no pushovers. Nice work by the pen again in this laugher. 2 games out of the wildcard and really rolling. Can’t imagine any team wants to play the Mets and face any of our starters. Frazier clearly would like a
ring and certainly a new contract somewhere for next year. Nimmo back has been a boost as has Cano. How nice to give a day off and lose nothing in the lineup. Hoping Dom Smith makes it back soon because he has had a
good season so far and is missed. So much to be happy about right now. Would be sending a great message
to play the Dodgers tough. Thor, Jake and Wheels the next three. One game at a time. Ya gotta believe!!
Speaking of rest, how many games in a row has Alonso played? Who is his back-up? Frazier? He’s a young bull and it may seem like he’s invincible, but he sure seems like he’s struggling of late with a lot of K’s. I’m sure Mickey would need a crowbar to get him out of the lineup and the press and fans would riot, but I think he should get a day-off. But not tomorrow night, since I’ll be at Citi! 🙂
Alonso has played in 145 of the 146 games the Mets have played this season. The only game he didn’t play in was May 26th against the Tigers.
He’s started the last 35 games. The last time he wasn’t in the starting lineup was August 4th against the Pirates, when he came into the game in the 7th inning and played the rest of the way. Frazier was the starting 1B that game.
Mets transferred Dominic Smith to the 60-day IL and he won’t be available to return until Sep. 25th. If he returns when first eligible, he’ll be available the final five games of the regular season.
There is another option to play 1st to give Alonso a breather. J. D. Davis played a lot of 1st base in the Houston system both in the minors and majors