NEW YORK -- Earlier this season, following a particularly unnerving Jacob deGrom loss, Mets third baseman Todd Frazier apologized for the team's lack of offensive support. Monday, after he and his teammates broke out for a season-high five home runs in an 8-5 win over the Yankees, Frazier called deGrom an "angel, basically, for what we put him through."
The Mets gave deGrom a reprieve from all that Monday at Yankee Stadium, supporting their ace with more homers than they had ever hit in a Subway Series game. Amed Rosario led off the game with a long ball off Yankees starter Luis Severino, Jose Bautista added a two-run shot, and Frazier, Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto all homered in the victory.
"Everybody pitched in a little bit tonight," Conforto said. "It was a great team win. Jake was great, just like he is every night, and we put up some runs for him."

Rosario's blast offered deGrom something he hasn't enjoyed much of this season -- an early lead, which Jeff McNeil extended with a two-out RBI single. Three innings later, Bautista added his homer, which was the seventh Severino has allowed in his last 11 starts. The Mets then roughed up reliever A.J. Cole with solo shots by Frazier (his first since July 4), Nimmo and Conforto.
All told, the Mets supported deGrom with eight runs for the second straight outing, after scoring a total of 16 in his previous seven starts.

"Obviously he's been pitching extremely well the whole year, and we always know that if we can get him some run support then we've got a really good chance of winning that game," Nimmo said. "So it was a really good job by him today, and a really good job by our offense."
As Baseball Writers' Association of America voters demonstrated in awarding Felix Hernandez the 2010 American League Cy Young despite a 13-12 record, wins matter far less than they used to in balloting for that award. deGrom's 7-7 record is more the product of one of the NL's worst run-support averages than anything else -- something the Mets improved in short order in Monday's victory.
"It's a well-known fact what's been going on with him," Frazier said. "The season we've been having -- let's be realistic, it's not what we wanted. So let's get as many positives as we can before the season's over with. One of those things is for him to win that big Cy Young Award."