Mets pull from 'something different' for much-needed win
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ANAHEIM -- It did not matter how it happened. It did not matter who did it. All that mattered for the Mets on Friday night was that they somehow, some way figured out how to win a baseball game.
For those tracking details, it was Ronny Mauricio who provided the hit in question at Angel Stadium -- the hit the Mets and their embattled manager, Carlos Mendoza, so badly needed to provide some sort of evidence that this season can be saved. Mauricio’s go-ahead homer in the seventh inning sent the Mets to a 4-3 win over the Angels.
The victory was just New York’s fourth in its last 21 games.
It was a start.
“It says a lot, especially after what we’ve been going through,” Mendoza said. “They fought back and they found a way. That’s a good sign.”
Hours after president of baseball operations David Stearns offered a public (but not entirely popular) vote of confidence in Mendoza, the Mets seemed destined to stay mired in the same old rut when Jorge Soler hit a two-run homer off rookie starting pitcher Christian Scott in the first inning. The Angels extended their lead before Bo Bichette’s sharp single off starting pitcher Walbert Ureña sparked a sixth-inning rally that Marcus Semien punctuated with a game-tying, two-run single.
An inning later, Mauricio sent a José Fermin fastball screaming over the center-field fence at 111.3 mph. He stopped briefly near home plate to admire its flight, then broke into a jog and beat his chest with his right fist.
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"It feels great to be able to help the team in a situation like that -- obviously a situation where my hit put us ahead,” Mauricio said through an interpreter. “We’re coming out here, we’re working, we’re doing everything we have to do to get out in front. It feels excellent.”
The Mets needed that one. Badly. And while one win cannot save their season, it did provide evidence that they may not be completely dead.
Scott, who was making his second start of the season after a brief and ineffective return from Tommy John surgery last week, retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced to take a no-decision. Huascar Brazobán earned the win with a perfect sixth, and for once, the Mets’ high-leverage bullpen chain -- Brazobán to Brooks Raley to Luke Weaver to Devin Williams -- held firm, combining with Scott to retire the final 21 batters they faced. It looked just like Stearns and the front office drew things up this winter.
That’s been rare.
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So, too, have wins, which is why earlier Friday, Stearns acknowledged the noise surrounding both his club and Mendoza, whose job status had come under increasing scrutiny as the losses piled up. In the baseball operations boss’s words, “We don’t view this as a manager problem, and we don’t intend to make a change.” Left unsaid was the reality that change could occur throughout the organization next offseason if the Mets don’t find a way to start winning baseball games.
That’s what made Friday’s victory so important. That’s what made it more than just a regular win.
"Every win means a lot, especially when we’ve dug ourselves into a hole like this,” Semien said. “Especially a comeback win on the road. That’s big for the group.”
Mendoza, too, focused on the fact that the Mets had to grind out this victory, erasing a three-run deficit in the middle innings, getting a key hit from Mauricio, a resilient performance from Scott and a dominant ending from the bullpen.
"We haven’t been able to win games like that when you get down 3-0 and the feeling is like, ‘All right,’” Mendoza said. “Today, it wasn’t the case. It was something different, the energy in the dugout, the guys playing loose, the guys playing the game. And it started with [Scott]. When he got punched, he punched back. He kind of set the tone there.”