NEW YORK -- When he’s at his best, Ketel Marte can take over a baseball game.
Sunday afternoon in New York, the Mets found that out the hard way as Marte hit a pair of home runs and played his usual stellar defense to help the D-backs split the four-game series with a 5-4 win at Citi Field.
Marte opened the game with a homer to center, part of a two-run first for the D-backs, who added another run in the second to take an early 3-0 lead.
While Marte would continue to reach base -- a hit-by-pitch in the second, a walk in the fourth and a double in the sixth -- the rest of the Arizona offense was quiet as New York scored four runs in the third to grab the lead.
Things stayed that way until the ninth, when Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza brought in left-hander Jake Diekman to try and close things out.
Pinch-hitter Gabriel Moreno led off the inning with a double, and Marte followed by hitting his second homer of the game, a shot to center that gave Arizona a 5-4 lead that closer Paul Sewald was able to make stand up in the ninth.
“I was so excited,” Marte said. “The team needed me. When I play good, we are going to win a lot of games. I just go hard every time.”
It was a big win for the D-backs, who ended their six-game road trip -- which included a two-game stop in Texas to face the Rangers -- with a 2-4 record after opening the trip 0-4.
“We battled hard,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “We come home 2-4, and we're OK and we've been OK either way, but it's a big win, and we're going to feel good about traveling back home to [Arizona] and sleep well and get ready for a very tough series against the Giants.”
After a red-hot start to the year, which included a 21-game hitting streak from April 28 to May 22 that is tied for the longest in the Majors this year, Marte had cooled at the end of the D-backs’ last homestand.
In fact, to begin the series with the Mets, Marte was in the midst of his worst stretch of the season, an 0-for-22 skid, but after working on some adjustments in the batting cage, he turned the corner Sunday.
“It’s a long season, and I never give up,” Marte said. “I’m the guy that works hard every day no matter what happens. Right now, I’m just trying to help my team. We’re just looking to win a game, and I know that they need me out there.”
A better hitter from the right side of the plate than he is from the left, both of Marte’s homers came against left-handed pitchers. He came into the game with a .950 OPS as a right-handed hitter this season as opposed to .680 as a lefty.
So when Mendoza brought the left-handed Diekman into the game for the ninth, the D-backs knew they were going to have a favorable matchup.
“He’s so incredibly talented,” Sewald said of Marte. “When he’s on, he’s on like nobody in the league. So I hope people keep throwing lefties out there so he can hit righty. That’s great, and we’ll take it every time.”
Mendoza said he had no regrets about the choice to have a lefty going in that inning, and Sewald made it clear he wasn’t second-guessing the New York manager.
“I don’t think that was a bad bullpen move,” Sewald said. “Marte has just been seeing the ball really, really well righty -- he’s been seeing it well lefty but really well righty -- so it was a great day to have him hit right-handed all day.”