NL East champions extend road winning streak to 11

CINCINNATI — Weren’t the Mets supposed to take Sunday off

With most of their starters on the bench — Michael Conforto was the exception — the Mets kept rolling, hardly resembling a team that had hoisted champagne bottles and victory cigars a night earlier.

In their first game as NL East champions, the Mets received a big pitching performance from Jacob deGrom and exploded for 13 hits in an 81 demolition of the Reds at Great American Ball Park to complete a fourgame sweep.

DeGrom (148) allowed one run on five hits over six innings with nine strikeouts to rebound from a sloppy performance against the Marlins last week after he was skipped in the rotation to get extra rest.

“I don’t necessarily know if the [skipped start] was a good thing or not,? but I felt good out there today,” said deGrom, who is expected to make a shortened start next Sunday.

Dilson Herrera and Kevin Plawecki each homered as the Mets extended their franchiserecord road winning streak to 11 games.

The goal for the Mets is home field in the NLDS. The Dodgers entered play Sunday trailing the Mets by one game in the race for home field.

“We’re going to play them out,” manager Terry Collins said. “I think we have to get the edge back that we had and play to win as many games as we can and try to get homefield advantage in the first round.”

For the Mets’ annual rookie hazing, firstyear players wore Underoos as they departed the ballpark. Among the superheroes represented were Superman ( Steven Matz), Captain America (Plawecki) and Shazam (Herrera). ... The Mets will start Bartolo Colon, Matz and Logan Verrett in succession against the Phillies beginning Tuesday.

Collins said he would like to get Jeurys Familia two more saves to break the club record of 43 set by Armando Benitez in 2001. Familia has 42 saves in 47 chances this season.