It’s been a magical season for the Mets and Sunday was just another example of that.
The Mets set a franchise record and tied a major league record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game in Sunday’s 7-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Four pitchers (Jacob deGrom, Seth Lugo, Joely Rodriguez and Trevor May) combined to strike out 20 Pirates as the Mets swept the four-game series and held onto their 1.0-game lead in the NL East.
“It starts with Jake,” Buck Showalter said of the accomplishment after the game. “A lot of good pitches. The thing I’m most proud of is we didn’t walk anybody. That’s hard to do in today’s game when people are chasing walks in a lot of cases. Outs are outs but when you think how hard it is to do and how infrequent it has been, it gets your attention.”
The Mets are just the ninth team in major league history to have 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, which was also accomplished by the Houston Astros earlier this season. But the team’s performance would have been for naught if New York lost, which could have happened after deGrom gave up a tying three-run homer to Oneil Cruz in the sixth inning.
Following the home run, Buck pulled deGrom for Lugo, who stopped the bleeding and pitched a clean sixth, striking out one in the process. Showalter pointed to Rodriguez’s two scoreless innings, where he struck out five, as very important to keeping the momentum swinging too far in Pittsburgh’s favor.
After three innings of relief, the Mets scored four runs in the eighth to give May -- who struck out one -- a cushion to pitch a clean ninth inning and pick up the win.
"Good pitching keeps momentum from slipping away from you, and we pitched well today," Showalter said.
While the team has higher aspirations than individual and team records, Sunday was significant for another reason. DeGrom threw a season-high 101 pitches, and while it didn’t end the way he wanted, his 13 strikeouts were the most he had all season and goes a long way to establishing his continued dominance after missing so much time due to injuries the last two seasons.
After his start, deGrom said he felt good, but his shaky sixth inning is something he regrets. Despite that, he knows they are looking at the bigger picture -- and that means winning.
"This group does a good job coming in the same way every day, and the goal is to win baseball games," he said. "It’s big for us to sweep this series and now it’s time to turn the page to Milwaukee and win a series there."
The Mets start a three-game set with the Brewers on Monday. Their magic number to earn a playoff spot is just two games, which they can clinch by winning just one game in this series.