SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Mets are enjoying quite a reversal of fortune in San Francisco this weekend. After a week of offensive performances that were as cold as the weather, the bats got hot, helping lead the Mets to two wins in San Francisco as the California weather turned pleasantly warm.<\/p>\n
Saturday night at Oracle Park, the Mets could do no wrong while the San Francisco Giants did just about everything wrong. Even without star slugger Juan Soto, the Mets managed nine runs in a 9-0 game, scoring 19 over the last two nights.<\/p>\n
These are the Mets everyone expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a couple there in St Louis, they were really close games. Then we come out here and make us travel, and lose the first one,\u201d said right-hander Clay Holmes. \u201cIt\u2019s great just to see us respond like we have, but really just everybody stepping up. The pitching has been great, the defense has been incredible, and the lineup is just showing what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holmes shut the Giants out over seven innings, allowing only three hits and two walks, and striking out four in the win (2-0). The offense capitalized on the mistakes by a sloppy San Francisco defense.<\/p>\n
Soto was forced to sit with a mild calf strain in the third game of a three-game set and missed nearly the entire game one night prior. Yet they\u2019ve scored 17 runs in 17 innings without him.<\/p>\n
A long lineup logged 12 hits against four Giants pitchers and one position player who took the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing complete games,\u201d said manager Carlos Mendoza. \u201cIt starts on the mound, setting the tone, getting the offense back in the dugout and having shutdown innings after we score. The pitching staff attacking, and then offensively grinding at bats.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets scored three times in the second inning, with right-hander Landon Roupp\u2019s defense doing him few favors. They scored five runs in the fifth to go up 8-0, batting around and further fatiguing the Giants. They capped the scoring in the seventh. There was a double, a single, an error, a wild pitch and a walk.<\/p>\n
It made for long innings for the opposing pitchers, but for Holmes, it afforded him some nice downtime in the dugout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I got better as the game went on because I was getting rest in between innings,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cThey\u2019re putting up good at-bats, making the pitchers throw. Our pitchers are getting to rest, making other pitchers, you know, work. And so it really impacts just the whole game.<\/p>\n
Bo Bichette and Marcus Semien had multi-hit games for the second night in a row, Brett Baty went 2-for-5 with a double, and Tyrone Taylor drove in four runs, going 2-for 3 with a pinch-hit, three-run homer right after the Giants replaced Roupp (1-1) with left-hander Ryan Borucki in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n
It was his first home run of the season and his first hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor it to be a homer and to contribute like that for the guys, it\u2019s very gratifying. I\u2019m thankful,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cAnd it made me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
No hitter on the Mets is as hot as Mark Vientos right now. The first baseman\/DH has hit safely in four straight games, with a home run, three doubles, three RBI, four runs scored and two walks. Vientos had a double, a single and an RBI single in his first three at-bats Saturday, going 3-for-5 on the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like myself,\u201d Vientos said. \u201cI feel really good.<\/p>\n
And to think, he only had two hits throughout all of spring training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept telling him in spring training, \u2018Keep hitting the ball hard, keep controlling the strike zone,’\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cAs a human, as a competitor, they want to see results.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSwaggy V\u201d has never been one to lack confidence, even when the results weren\u2019t there. Now, he\u2019s clearly seeing the ball well. Not only is it evident in the walks and in the way he\u2019s hitting \u2014 using all fields and making hard contact \u2014 but in the two challenges he\u2019s won over the last two nights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see him challenging pitches like that from the doughnut, they look pretty close. And then you look up on the board like, \u2018Wow, Mark is seeing the ball really well out of the hand,’\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cAnd then what he follows is, he\u2019s not missing pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soto is confident he won\u2019t need to miss significant time by going on the injured list. The strain is minor, and he was already feeling better by Saturday morning. Still, if this is how the Mets are playing without him, they\u2019ll be just fine if they do lose him next week.<\/p>\n
The series with the Giants (3-5) concludes Sunday afternoon. The Mets (5-4) are ahead 2-1 with a chance to win their second series of the season, and one against a key NL opponent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Mets are enjoying quite a reversal of fortune in San Francisco this weekend. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,88,358,1712,162,134,101,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-664645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bo-bichette","10":"tag-brett-baty","11":"tag-clay-holmes","12":"tag-giants","13":"tag-juan-soto","14":"tag-mets","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-san-francisco","17":"tag-san-francisco-giants","18":"tag-sanfrancisco","19":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","20":"tag-sf","21":"tag-sf-giants","22":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116352453805928780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}