METS HIT BACK
After Cohen’s tweet, bats come alive vs. Giants
SAN FRANCISCO — Hours after owner Steve Cohen tweeted frustration with his team’s underperforming offense, the Mets tweeted back.
They salvaged a victory over the Giants to avoid a sweep in back-to-back series against the two titans of the NL West.
Kevin Pillar crushed a no-doubt threerun home run to left field in the top of the 12th inning to lead the Mets to a 6-2 victory. The four-hour affair at Oracle Park snapped the Mets’ five-game losing streak and pulled them back up to .500.
“He’s a new owner in baseball, he’s a passionate guy and he cares very much about us individually,” Pillar said of the club’s reaction to Cohen’s tweet. “He cares about this team, and he wants to see us be successful. I think it was a topic of conversation, we talked about it amongst ourselves.
“He wants to see the best from us. He expects more out of us. I think we all expect a lot out of each other. I think we came out with the right attitude today. We put up some big hits when we really needed them.”
After a parade of impatient and aggressive at-bats resulting in zeroes, the Mets finally set the table in the top of the ninth inning. It all began with Pete Alonso’s elbow while the Mets were down by one run. The first baseman was drilled on his pastic guard to lead off the ninth and Michael Conforto followed with a single to center to move Alonso to third. J.D. Davis drove Alonso home with a sacrifice fly to tie the game, 1-1.
Manager Luis Rojas said x-rays on Alonso’s arm came back negative. Alonso told Rojas he doesn’t expect to miss any time, but there is swelling in his triceps area. The Mets hope their slugger’s injury does not impede him from digging into the batter’s box and starting more rallies, hitby-pitch or otherwise.
“We started swinging in the ninth inning,” Rojas said. “That’s when we showed up offensively.”
Edwin Diaz pitched two shutdown innings in the ninth and 10th. The Mets again took the lead in the top of the 11th on Conforto’s double to right field, but Jeurys Familia allowed San Francisco to tie the game in the bottom of the frame. His outing, complete with a dominant strikeout to end the 11th, was enough to avoid a Giants’ walk-off and allow Pillar to go yard.
Tylor Megill continued his excellent rookie season by hurling six innings of one-run ball. The Giants, the club with the most home runs (181) in MLB, were unable to crush a long ball off Megill, who used his filthy slider to register six strikeouts, including two against Kris Bryant, in his 11th career start. The lone run he allowed came in the third inning, when the Giants tagged him for three consecutive hits, but Megill concentrated and limited the damage.
The third-place Mets improved to 1320 since the All-Star break. Discounting their sweep of the dismantled Nationals, the Mets have lost seven of their last nine
series matchups.
“I think it got the monkey off our back a little bit,” Pillar said. “Things just haven’t been going well. Guys are in good spirits, guys are working hard, it’s just baseball is a challenging game.”
Following the win, the Amazin’s flew to Los Angeles for a four-game series against the defending champion Dodgers again. There, they will face elite pitchers in Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer and David Price in at least three of those four games.
Even one win in Los Angeles would be an improvement after last weekend’s sweep.