The Mets used the long ball and Sean Manaea’s brilliance to defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2 in Game 3 of the NLDS on Tuesday at Citi Field.

With the win the Mets take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-5 series, with the opportunity to close it out at home on Wednesday.

Here are the takeaways...

-Manaea threw a gem shutting the Phillies out for seven innings, as the Mets built a 6-0 lead, before he allowed an infield hit in the eighth that came around to score with Phil Maton pitching.

The left-hander allowed only two hits. He walked two hitters and struck out six, but the K’s didn’t really indicate his dominance as much as the 19 swings-and-misses he got, many to put himself in advantageous counts.

After a couple of less-than-dominant starts against the Milwaukee Brewers, Manaea again looked like the guy who had pitched as well as anyone in the majors for two months after lowering his arm angle in patterning himself after Chris Sale.

With their bullpen issues in this post-season, it was vital that Manaea get deep into the game. And after a fortunate first inning in which he survived three rockets from the Phillies' first three hitters, all at 106 mph or higher but right at a fielder, he settled in and pitched efficiently, getting through seven in 86 pitches.

-Offensively, the Mets got solo home runs from Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker against Aaron Nola to build a 2-0 lead through five innings, and then knocked Nola out in the sixth, loading the bases with no outs and finally in on Starling Marte’s two-out single to left-center.

In the seventh, Jose Iglesias added a two-run single, still another clutch, two-out hit for him.

In the eighth, Francisco Lindor’s two-out double inside the first base line drove in the Mets’ final run.

-Phil Maton couldn’t deliver a clean eighth inning in relief of Manaea, allowing an inherited run and then one of his due mostly to a walk to Kyle Schwarber and a line-drive single to right by Bryce Harper.

Ryne Stanek came on and allowed an RBI single before getting out of the inning. After the Mets tacked on a run to make it 7-2, Stanek closed out the win with a scoreless ninth inning.

In the most crucial spot in the game for Manaea, leading 2-0 with two runners on and no outs in the sixth, Bryce Harper at the plate, the lefty was cool and crafty.

He got Harper to swing-and-miss on three straight pitches, an 85-mph changeup down and in, a 79-mph sweeper toward the outside corner, and a 77-mph sweeper off the outsider corner.

Slow, slower, slowest.

And then he got out of the jam with another change-up, fooling Nick Castellanos on an 0-2 pitch. But off-balance, Castellanos managed to make hard contact, hitting a 95.2 mph line drive right at Iglesias, playing 10 feet to the second-base side of the bag.

Schwarber, the runner at second, made a baserunning blunder, breaking toward third for a couple of steps, not knowing where Iglesias was playing, and thus making it easy for Iglesias to flip to Lindor and double him off.

-Alonso continued to own Nola as he hit a solo home run in the second inning to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

Alonso took an outside fastball to the opposite field, over the right-field fence for a 385-foot HR that would have been gone in every major league ballpark, according to Statcast.

It was his third homer of the postseason, all of them oppo, starting with the season-saver in Game 3 in Milwaukee.

After the HR Alonso was hitting .333 (17-for-51) in his career against Nola, with six home runs.

-Tyrone Taylor, who has contributed to this Mets’ run in so many ways, did so in the fourth inning with center field defense, making a spectacular play to nail Alec Bohm at second base on his ball off the wall in right-center.

Taylor got an excellent jump to get there quickly, and wasted no motion taking the ball off the wall and turning to throw. Then made a strong throw to Lindor.

Game MVP: Sean Manaea

It was a breakthrough performance of sorts for the lefthander in that he came in with a 10.66 post-season ERA, having pitched poorly in past Octobers with the Oakland A’s and San Diego Padres.

Here are the takeaways...

Game MVP: Sean Manaea

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