Facing a sweep at the hands of the first-place Mariners, the Mets salvaged their trip to the Pacific Northwest and won the third game of the series in dominant fashion, 7-1.
The Mets first got on the board via poor Mariners play rather than their own offensive prowess. After a line-drive single by Bo Bichette and a dork over short by Juan Soto, Jared Young grounded into what should’ve been an easy double play. However, Josh Naylor threw the ball into left field and Bichette came around to score.
The
1-0 lead would be brief however, as J.P. Crawford took Freddy Peralta deep for a solo home run in the first Seattle at bat to tie the game. But Peralta settled in almost instantly, with a sharp slider really working for him today.
Each team would put runners on base in each half inning early on, but it wasn’t until the fourth that anyone cashed in. With one out, MJ Melendez walked and, on an attempted steal of second, Luis Torrens shot a ball the other way to put two on. Carson Benge singled to load the bases, bringing up Bichette. With his third hit of the game, Bichette scootched a ball up the middle, scoring Melendez and Torrens. Soto avoided a double play by legging out a fielder’s choice, and there were runners on first and third with two outs. Soto stole second and, in a delayed double steal, Benge came home to make it 4-1. Young hit a slow grounder that careened off of first base, and the ball kicked deep into right field, scoring Soto and increasing the lead to four runs.
The Mets beat up on Westchester County native George Kirby, who has historically struggled against the Mets. Kirby struck out five, walked one, and gave up five runs in four innings of play.
His counterpart, Peralta ran into a little trouble in the bottom of the inning, with back to back one-out singles by Cole Young and Dominic Canzone threatening to allow the M’s right back into the game. However, a truly bizarre ‘strikeout’ of Jhonny Pereda and a more traditional strikeout of Colt Emerson ended the inning.
I say bizarre strikeout because no one on the field or in the broadcast booth truly knew what happened initially. At first it was thought that Pereda was not ready and engaging the pitcher with nine seconds on the pitch clock, but it turns out it was even more unusual. Pereda had already called a time out, and when he requested a second, home plate umpire Adam Beck called an automatic strike, his third, and that was all for his at-bat. Gary Cohen and Daniel Murphy did not realize that a requested second time out would lead to a strike call as opposed to just a refusal of said time out, but the play is so rare that no one was really sure.
The Mets added a sixth run in the fifth when A.J. Ewing scored from first base on a Melendez triple down the right-field line. But more important than that, Peralta was able to limit his pitch count in the fifth and sixth innings and was able to get through the sixth for just the fifth time this season. All told, Peralta went six innings, allowed six hits and two walks on six strikeouts for one earned run. It was perhaps his most complete start of the season.
Scoreless outings from Brooks Raley and Luke Weaver, along with a bases loaded sacrifice fly by Bichette, brought the Mets to the bottom of the ninth up by six. Joey Gerber made his second Mets’ appearance in a scoreless ninth to secure the win.
All told, this was a good day for the Mets as a club. Bichette collected four hits, Ewing three, and two apiece for Young and Torrens. This was the Mets’ first victory in Seattle in nine years, and somewhat softened the sting of the club losing the first two games of the series.
The Mets are off tomorrow as they travel down the coast to face the Padres for three at Petco Park. Christian Scott will take on Michael King in the series’ first game on Friday.
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