Pete Alonso broke out of a mini slump with two home runs to lead the Mets to a 6-3 win over the Mariners Sunday afternoon at Citi Field. The victory gave the Mets the series win over the first-place Mariners.
Alonso’s day started with an RBI single in the first inning. It wasn’t a particularly well-struck ball and the play was made by Francisco Lindor, who reached first on an error and made a mad dash around the bases to score on Alonso’s hit.
In the third inning, Alonso hit his 40th home run of the season, a two-run shot to make it 4-0 Mets. And he capped the scoring with a solo shot in the seventh, giving him a 4-RBI game, giving him 100 RBIs on the season.
Tylor Megill started for the Mets and picked up the win, although he fell apart in the fourth inning and made it thru 5.1 innings only because of some strong defense behind him. DJ Stewart again made a nice defensive play, running down a ball in the gap with a runner on base. Lindor made a terrific stop on a hard-hit ball to start a DP and Brett Baty made a nice bare-handed play and made a strong throw to get an out at first.
McNeil also homered in the game and the Mets got a preview of what we hope to see for the next decade, with Ronny Mauricio singling, stealing second and then being driven home with an RBI from Francisco Alvarez.
Brooks Raley relieved Megill and threw 1.2 scoreless innings. Trevor Gott and Adam Ottavino finished up with a scoreless inning apiece, with Ottavino striking out J.P. Crawford, who homered off him for the winning run Saturday, to end the game, stranding two runners on base and picking up his eighth save of the season.
Gut Reaction: it was a good game and a good series for the Mets. Everyone contributed for the Mets this series. It was a team effort. The defensive play by Baty was a major league play. The defensive plays by Stewart shows at least that he can be an emergency outfielder next year. Mauricio impressed in his first major league series. Lindor made an unbelievable catch and then had the wherewithal to throw it the second to start a double play. McNeil has turned his season around. Even the pitching staff was more than enough. It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
Nice game for Pete. Nice play by the kids today and McNeil continues on a hot streak. Maybe we only get a good year out of him in the even numbered years. So I’m already excited for 2024. Nice work by the pen and let’s face it, we had no right to win a series against a potential playoff bound team, but that’s the beauty of baseball. Megill still makes me nervous but he lasted into the 6th, regardless of the reasons, so that’s a quality start on this team. Heading to Washington to try and stay out of last place.
That first run got me super pumped and seemed to electrify the team, and they played that way. Lindor was running on a 1-2 pitch and Alonso went with a high outer-edge fastball to line a single into short right center. Lindor never broke stride and seemed to catch Julio Rodriguez asleep out there as his lollipop into the cutoff man was allowed to go through and was wide of home plate. It is this energy that we have not seen all year, but rather a corpse that took the field every day. Next victims are the Nationals that have also awakened lately; 24-2, here we come.
And Mauricio has quite the arm. I love the way he guns it to 1B on DPs!