Wisdom born of pain
Once-struggling Mets have won six in a row, 13 of 14
New York — The New York Mets are convinced their earlier struggles have made them stronger for the stretch.
Michael Conforto homered twice, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil hit tworun shots and surging New York beat the Miami Marlins 7-2 Wednesday to complete a four-game sweep.
The Mets took another early lead and posted their sixth straight victory, winning for the 13th time in 14 games. New York has swept the last-place Marlins three times this season.
They sat a season-high 11 games under .500 after dropping their first following the All-Star Game, but the Mets (59-56) have won at a torrid pace and own a major league-best 19-6 record since the break.
"We're trying to accomplish something as a team together that can be very special and then the things that we've gone through, some rough patches, have only brought us closer together," manager Mickey Callaway said.
"If we were a team that had just breezed through until now and been in a similar spot, we wouldn't be as close of a unit so there is a silver lining to our struggles," he said.
Steven Matz (7-7) won again at Citi Field, helping New York stay in the thick of the NL wild-card race.
Matz worked at a quick and easy pace, allowing two runs on seven hits and two walks over 6.2 innings, striking out seven. He is 5-0 with a 2.14 ERA in 10 starts at home this year.
"I think it's a testament to the whole team," he said. "Even though when we went through a bad stretch there for a little while, everybody kept their heads down and kept working and it's paying off right now."
Following a four-pitch walk to Conforto in the first inning, Alonso homered for the third straight game, connecting off Jordan Yamamoto (4-3) for his 37th home run. The rookie's homer marked the seventh straight time the Mets have scored in the first, something they haven't done since 2010.
"We've been hitting well, our defense has been awesome and our pitching's been lights out," Alonso said. "So I think that's going to be a really tough combo for our opponents to handle and we just need to keep rolling and take it day by day."
Matz reached on a leadoff single in the third and scored on Conforto's 24th homer and 100th of his career, a first-pitch shot that hooked just inside the right field foul pole to give New York a 4-1 lead. Conforto has homered seven times in his last 11 games.
"To be able to do it here at home was pretty awesome," Conforto said of the milestone, which made him the 14th player in franchise history to hit 100 homers in a Mets uniform. "Hopefully I hit a lot more but today was special."
McNeil, the major league batting leader, lined his 15th home run off reliever Jose Quijada in the seventh. Conforto took Quijada deep two batters later for his fifth career multi-homer game.
"We're stacking good at-bats on top of each other," Conforto said. "I think we've just kind of rallied around each other in the second half here."
Lewis Brinson put Miami on the board with an RBI single in the second. Brian Anderson added a solo homer in the sixth, his 18th.
Bryan Holaday chased Matz with a twoout double in the seventh. Veteran Martin Prado greeted reliever Justin Wilson with a pinch-hit single, moving Holaday to third. Wilson recovered, fanning Jon Berti to end the threat.
"It's frustrating," Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. "We kind of got manhandled the whole trip."
Streaking at Citi
The Mets have won eight straight at Citi Field, their longest home streak since winning 12 in a row from Sept. 27, 2014, through April 23, 2015.
Been a while
New York's 13-1 run matches its best 14-game stretch since June 22-July 6, 1990.
Gag gift
Members of the Mets relief corps presented Conforto with a damaged baseball, trying to pass it off as the one hit for his milestone home run. The seams were significantly frayed on the inscribed ball, giving the appearance that it had been chewed up by a dog.
"This is a joke that the bullpen thought would be funny, to say this was my home run ball," he said, gripping the phony keepsake. "As you can see we're still having fun out here."
Conforto noted that the actual ball had been retrieved and was in much better condition.
Trainer’s room
Marlins: SS Miguel Rojas was placed on the 10-day injured list prior to the game with a strained right hamstring. He was injured Tuesday night, stumbling over first base while trying to avoid a double play.
Mets: C Wilson Ramos was behind the plate for all nine innings despite a noon start following a night game. Callaway cited Ramos' preparation and strong desire to play as reasons, along with an off day today. Up next Marlins: RHP Elieser Hernandez (14, 5.66 ERA) takes on former Cy Young Award winner LHP Dallas Keuchel (3-4, 3.86 ERA) today as Miami hosts Atlanta for the first of four games.
Mets: RHP Marcus Stroman (6-11, 3.07 ERA) is set to make his Citi Field debut Friday night against RHP Stephen Strasburg (14-5, 3.72 ERA) and the division-rival Nationals. Acquired from Toronto for two minor leaguers on July 28, the Long Island native allowed three runs in 4.1 innings Saturday in Pittsburgh.
Las Vegas — Gregg Popovich somehow only met Mike Krzyzewski for the first time about four years ago, when the two coaching greats saw their paths finally cross when they were together at a USA Basketball event. They're a whole lot closer now. USA Basketball's coaching past was alongside its present Wednesday, when Krzyzewski — who led the national team to an 88-1 record over his 12 years at the helm — was alongside Popovich for Day 3 of the team's training camp in advance of the FIBA World Cup. And Popovich made no effort to hide how happy he was to have his predecessor in the gym to watch practice and some scrimmages.
“We were anxious to get Coach K in town to spend a couple days,” Popovich said. “I've already talked to him, as you might imagine, gotten advice. But to have him here, seeing the scrimmage, now we can all go back and talk about what we think needs to happen. Having him here with that added experience is invaluable.”
Popovich wasn't the only one in the gym feeling a boost from Krzyzewski's presence on Wednesday. Among the others: USA Basketball forwards Mason Plumlee and Jayson Tatum, both of whom said they relished the chance to spend some extra time with their coach from Duke.
“It was great, man,” Plumlee said. “I try to see Coach once or twice a summer, so for him to come out here ... he didn't come for me, but it was great to see him.”
Tatum chatted with Krzyzewski for a few minutes after practice, and said he got some advice.
“Confidential,” Tatum said. “But it was good advice.”
Krzyzewski won five gold medals in his tenure as national team coach — including three at the Olympics and two from the world championships, now known as the World Cup — and started Wednesday in a morning meeting with Popovich and other coaches. He walked into practice at UNLV alongside Popovich and was expected to take part in more meetings before departing later this week.
“He's really the only guy that Pop can relate to in trying to bring this together so fast,” Plumlee said.
Krzyzewski, who politely declined an interview request through USA Basketball, first met Popovich around the time that the longtime San Antonio Spurs coach was accepting an invitation to replace the Duke coach at the helm of the U.S. program. They were brought together in Las Vegas by USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo during preparations for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Colangelo wanted to hire Krzyzewski's replacement long before Rio, just to eliminate incessant speculation during the Olympic cycle about who would take over the program. He wasn't aware at the time that the coaches had never gotten acquainted.
“Once they got to know each other, they were like bonded immediately,” Colangelo said. “Pop was in all the meetings and the practices after they met. I wanted him to get his feet wet just to see how we had done things under Mike. And I think it was a great way to get him started. But I thought that was amazing, that they had never met each other.”
Krzyzewski and Popovich are loaded with similarities: Both went to service academies, both played for Bob Knight (Krzyzewski played for Knight at Army, and Knight was Popovich's coach at the 1972 U.S. Olympic trials, a few years before Popovich got his first head coaching job at Division III Pomona-Pitzer). Both have five championships from their ‘real' jobs — Krzyzewski at Duke, Popovich in San Antonio. They are both considered basketball royalty, the top of the top of their profession.
All that only adds to the oddity that they didn't know each other until a few years ago.
“I'm a Division III guy at heart and that's where I spent most of my time until I somehow woke up in San Antonio and never left,” Popovich said. “We never played Duke when I was at Pomona-Pitzer.”
USA Basketball said Boston's Marcus Smart is out with a left calf injury, and he will be re-evaluated when the team gets to Los Angeles for the second part of training camp next week . ... In two 10-minute scrimmage periods Wednesday between the national team candidates and the select team — the yo unger NBA players brought into practice to compete against the varsity — there was no winner. Both periods ended in a tie, with Milwaukee's Khris Middleton making three free throws with 0.7 seconds left in the first one to save his team . ... Camp continues with Day 4 today, followed by an open scrimmage Friday night.