NEW YORK – The energy remains high at Citi Field.
The Mets scored two runs off reliever Yovanny Cruz in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat the Nationals, 5-4, on Saturday.
Down 4-3 with runners on first and second and no outs, Francisco Alvarez doubled down the left-field line, scoring Brett Baty. Two batters later, Francisco Lindor singled over the head of right fielder Dylan Crews, scoring pinch-runner Cristian Pache.
The Mets have won eight of their last 11 games.
“For me, it’s just resilience. You don’t play perfect baseball when you go on winning streaks,” Mets manager Andy Green said. “You make mistakes. You make errors. You make baserunning mistakes. You don’t execute every pitch. But you don’t let that moment impact the next moment. I think our guys have been tremendous at that.”
For example, Lindor made up for the baserunning blunder he committed an inning earlier. After leading off with a single, Lindor was thrown out at second base after he saw a wild pitch from reliever Clayton Beeter get away from catcher Harry Ford. Lindor hesitated running to second only to be thrown out with ease. Minutes later he approached Green and acknowledged his mistake.
“But [Lindor] didn’t let it impact the game on the line. That’s a championship-caliber player,” Green said. “That’s what you want from your entire team. I think we have seen that time and time again. Teams go on a long [winning] streak and it’s not perfect. It’s just resilience. So you are always bouncing back from mistakes. You always believe you can come back and win baseball games. I'm excited by what happened at the end of the game.”
Lindor said there are good vibes on the field and in the clubhouse. He noticed the change after the MLB Trade Deadline came and went.
“Guys are figuring each other out. Guys are jumping up after strikeouts, which is fun. You have younger players playing the game the right way, playing hard,” Lindor said. “Then you have the other ones having quite the at-bats like Bo [Bichette] and Marcus [Semien] and [Jorge] Polanco. This is a good time right now. We have to keep up the energy, play for each other and see what happens.”
It looked like Mets left-hander Sean Manaea was on the verge of recording his fifth consecutive quality start on Saturday. But he had a tough time getting outs in the sixth inning.
Manaea was cruising during the first five innings, retiring 15 of the first 17 batters he faced. The only blemish was a solo homer by Andrés Chaparro in the fourth to make it a 2-1 game in favor of the Mets.
But then Manaea had problems getting outs in the sixth. First, he started the inning by hitting Andrew Pinckney with a pitch. Two batters later, Chaparro reached base on a walk to put runners on first and second. Brady House followed and hit a 1-1 pitch off the left-field foul pole for a three-run homer and gave the Nationals a 4-2 lead.
Carson Benge made it a one-run game by hitting a solo homer off left-hander Tom Cosgrove in the bottom of the inning. Benge also contributed a key outfield assist, cutting down Pinckney at the plate with a 98.1 mph throw in the seventh.
That laser beam was the third-fastest tracked outfield assist by a Mets player under Statcast (2015). Benge now has each of the top three, with a 100.0 mph assist on July 24 and a 98.2 mph hose on July 10. He is the only MLB player with three 98-plus mph outfield assists this season.
“I didn’t think [Pinckney] was going to go on that one, but I still have to finish the play,” Benge said. “When I saw him running after I let go of the ball … I knew he would be out.”
Jefry Yan earned his first MLB win in style by recording five key outs in relief, showing off his signature strikeout celebration.
“I’m very excited and happy. First and foremost, I want to thank God for the opportunity,” Yan said through interpreter Alan Suriel. “But I want to thank the team as well. Like I said, when I went into the dugout, I said, ‘Let’s battle back into the game. Let’s win the game.’ There’s no way we were going to lose today. We were all together and united. It was really exciting.”
It’s been a tough year for the Mets, but the season is not over, thanks to the young players on the team, Lindor said.
“We gotta play to win. The expectation is to come here and play as hard as we can, day in and day out, and try to win,” he said. “[The young guys] are trying to win every single day. Even when we were losing, they would get a little bit upset because they wanted to win. It’s very important, not just for them, but for everybody.”