After storming back in Tuesday night's game against the San Francisco Giants only to let it slip away in the ninth, the Mets quickly returned to action on Wednesday afternoon, dropping the rubber game, 9-3.
Here are the takeaways...
- After striking out Darin Ruf to start his day, Thomas Szapucki, who was making his first career major league start, had quite a rough rest of his afternoon.
Following the strikeout, Wilmer Flores doubled, Mike Yastrzemski walked and Evan Longoria hit a three-run home run to center field to get the scoring started.
Szapucki then walked Thairo Estrada which brought up the blazing hot Joc Pederson, who hit three dingers in Tuesday night’s game and had the game-tying hit in the ninth off Edwin Diaz, up to bat. Pederson continued to torment the Mets and jacked another home run to give the Giants a quick 5-0 lead.
- In the second, the wheels completely fell off for Szapucki. Now down 6-0 after Flores doubled home a run, Yastrzemski followed with a two-run jack that made it 8-0. A batter later, Longoria went back-to-back, connecting on his second home run of the day, and knocked Szapucki out of the game.
Failing to get out of the second inning, Szapucki managed to get four outs and gave up nine earned runs on seven hits while walking three and striking out two.
- Trevor Williams, who last pitched in Game 2 of the doubleheader on Saturday against the Colorado Rockies, came in for long relief and pitched brilliantly, shutting down the San Francisco hitters. Williams went 3.2 innings giving up one hit, walking two and striking out five.
- Down 9-1 in the bottom of the third inning, Jeff McNeil hustled for a fly ball headed toward the left field line and made a beautiful sliding grab but slammed into the side wall viciously, hitting his knee and face on the padding.
He was immediately checked on by the training staff but stayed in the game for the rest of the inning. With his turn due up the next half-inning and his team down eight runs, Travis Jankowski pinch hit for him to give him the rest of the day off.
The team announced McNeil has a left knee contusion and is day-to-day.
- Following Williams, the bullpen continued to throw up zeros with Colin Holderman, Chasen Shreve and Seth Lugo each pitching a clean inning.
- Meanwhile, the Mets' offense couldn’t get much going off Giants’ starter Jakob Junis, who pitched six innings and gave up two runs. However, Francisco Lindor, who has owned Junis in his career after seeing him a ton in the AL Central, went yard for the sixth time in his career against the right-hander.
Lindor is now 20-for-39 against Junis with six homers, four doubles, a triple and 14 runs batted in.
- New York added a run in the eighth but ultimately fell by a score of 9-3.