NEW YORK -- The Mets tend not to win games easily. But at least they are winning games again.
On Friday, the Mets needed 10 innings, seven pitchers and an MJ Melendez walk-off homer to upend the Marlins, 9-7. It wasn’t perfect, but for a Mets team that has played two more extra-inning games than any other Major League team this season, it was essentially the status quo. Friday’s game was their 11th extra-inning contest.
There was no winning rally for the Mets. Instead, Melendez stepped to the plate with one out and an automatic runner on second base, and crushed a Pete Fairbanks pitch over the fence in right for a two-run homer.
On three separate occasions in the first half of the game, the Mets took a four-run lead, building it initially on two-run singles from A.J. Ewing and Brett Baty in the first. After the Marlins began chipping away at starting pitcher Freddy Peralta, the Mets tacked on runs in the third and fourth innings, the former on a Mark Vientos homer to the second deck in left. But Peralta again proved inefficient, throwing 94 pitches over 4 2/3 innings, and the Marlins eventually tied things on a two-run Owen Caissie homer off Tobias Myers in the eighth.
Austin Warren worked a scoreless 10th for the win.