Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning and the Mets got just enough pitching against the lowly White Sox to emerge with a 5-3 victory Saturday night in Chicago. It was the Mets’ third-straight win and puts the club eight games over .500 for the first time this season.
After the first two batters struck out, Mark Vientos reached base on a bloop. Alonso followed with the blast and the Mets had a two-run lead. Winker followed it with a solo shot to make it 3-0.
It should have been enough against the worst team in the majors. But it was Jose Quintana on the mound and his razor-thin margin for error makes every game seemingly a nail-biter. He stranded two runners in the bottom of the first but gave up runs in both the second and third innings. Quintana somehow completed five innings, thanks to stranding six runners. It was enough to pick up his seventh win of the season.
Winker had an RBI single in the third inning and also had a hit in the sixth, when the Mets scored their final run on a Starling Marte RBI single. It was the second straight 3-hit game for Winker, who was removed for defense. His spot in the order came up again in the seventh but Tyrone Taylor struck out with two runners on base.
But Taylor contributed a nice defensive play, as did Brandon Nimmo.
Three relievers contributed three hitless innings, getting the Mets to the bottom of the ninth with a 5-2 lead. Normally, that’s the spot for Edwin Diaz but as he was used yesterday with a four-run lead, he was unavailable today, having pitched in three straight games.
Jose Butto came on for the save. While Gary Cohen was telling us that the White Sox were 0-88 when trailing after eight innings, the White Sox pushed across a run and had two runners on base. With a lefty due up and Danny Young warmed up, it seemed like a pitching change was in order. But Carlos Mendoza left Butto in and he got the lefty to hit a comebacker, which gave the Mets the win.
The Mets finished the month of August with a 15-13 record and they’re 23-18 since the All-Star break. Coming into the season, the goal was to have meaningful games in September and with the club two games back for the third Wild Card spot, that seems to have been achieved.
Now they need to finish the sweep. The problem is the Mets aren’t great in this area and they don’t typically play well either in day games or on Sundays. They’re 26-32 in day games this year. And their Sunday record is 10-12 and they’ve lost their last seven Sunday games, scoring two runs or fewer in six of those tilts.
I thought of this game as a must win and think the same about tomorrow. It’s really okay to let the Sox have the worst record ever. You have to win when the teams in front of you lose and they did. Alonso seems to be heating up and only two weeks ago they were not getting as much out of Winker as expected. Now he’s hitting .326 and had three hits today. Kudos to the pitchers all night. Quintana gave us five and only gave up one earned run. Got to feel good about Manaea on tap for the sweep.
Gut Reaction : Alonso hit 8 home runs in the month of August. I hope his power surge can continue in September. Winker should be playing all the time against RHP.
Saturday, Stanek pitched a scoreless 7th inning with a 3 lead. Friday he wasn’t used in the 7th inning with a 3 run lead. Instead, Diaz was used in the 9th Friday with a 4 run lead therefore Diaz wasn’t available Saturday with a 3 run lead.. It all worked out because the Mets won both games but the bullpen strategy is suspect. Let’s sweep today and they will have a very good road trip.
Metsense, in the postgame show Jerry Blevins started out by saying that Butto hasn’t been the same and has been walking people, but he gave credit to Mendoza for “going with his gut”. Really? Going with your gut when you have Justin Verlander out there is one thing, trusting a first year pitcher that in the last 8 innings pitched had nine walks, just gave up a big homerun because he can’t place his pitches and has a 6.23 FIP and 4.36 ERA is not how I want my manager to manage. That was luck. And he could have hurt his team that is fighting tooth and nail.
I keep having flashback to Pat Riley leaving John Starks in Game 7 to shoot threes when I hear about managing with your gut, when you see a player is failing you believe “he will be ok”.
The Mets do what they needed to despite Quintana looking bad against a historically weak team. Kudos to the pen, along with the offense that did just enough. They gained ground in the race on a night that they absolutely needed to do so. Wash, rinse, and repeat today as they are in catch up mode due to early season transgressions.