Mets 7 Padres 5 10 innings (Petco Park, Sn Diego, CA)
Mets record: 42-46
Mets streak: Won 6
WP - Drew Smith (4-3)
LP - Tom Cosgrove (1-2)
Seat on the Korner:
We select the star of the game and virtually invite him to a Seat on the Korner, just as Ralph Kiner used to do for his studio postgame show on WOR-channel 9 broadcasts in the early decades of the Mets.
Francisco Lindor had the most productive night, and also had the most important hit of the game. He went 3-for-5 with three RBI, and his two run single in the 10th which looked like window dressing at the time as it gave the Mets a 7-3 lead, was absolutely necessary as Manny Machado's two run HR in the bottom of the inning went from a game tying blast to a harmless footnote in a Mets victory.
Need to Know
Lindor has a .348 average, a 1.210 OPS, 7 HR's and 16 rBI in his last 18 games.
Jeff McNeil put the Mets ahead for good in the 10th, a first pitch double down the right field line to score the ghost runner and make it 4-3.
Francisco Alvarez had another great game, going 4-for-6 and driving in the second run of the 10th inning with an opposite field RBI single to make it 5-3.
Daniel Vogelbach also had three hits and a walk, and for the first time would have two infield singles in the same game. An RBI grounder to deep short in the first, and a line drove off Yu Darvish's back in the third.
Justin Verlander started the game and went six innings, throwing 98 pitches and giving up two earned runs on five hits and three walks.
Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino, and Drew Smith combined to pitch three scoreless innings in the 7th, 8th, and 9th.
The Mets are now 15-3 in extra inning games since the start of the 2022 season. The Padres are now 0-8 in extra inning games in 2023.
Turning Point
This won the game for the Mets or, more accurately, lost the game for the Padres. With one out in the 7th and the game tied at 3-3, Ha Seong Kim doubled to left field, and then for some reason tried to stretch it into a triple with the play in front of him. Tommy Pham made a perfect throw to gun him down.
Juan Soto would follow up with a double to officially make Kim's decision a dodged bullet.
Three Keys
Drew Smith: Admit it. When Drew Smith pitched the 9th and he gave up a two out single to Roughned Odor to bring up Juan Soto, and Buck Showalter left Smith in for that matchup, you were terrified. It's okay to admit it, because I and all of Twitter was terrified. But Smith induced a ground ball from Soto to end the inning and send the game to extras. It was great for the Mets, and great for Smith who had struggled lately.
No Haderade Available: Josh Hader not being available after pitching in three straight games against the Angels put the Padres bullpen into a precarious situation tonight, and the Mets would eventually wear them down. It would have happened in the 9th against Nick Martinez but Starling Marte got overanxious on a first pitch slider with the bases loaded and grounded into a 1-2-3 double play (against a pitcher who had lost the strike zone.)
But not having Hader would wear down the Padres in the 10th.
The Padres bullpen would give up three earned runs on six hits and three walks in five innings.
A Former Met Fails To Kill Us: Nobody wants to see a former Met kill the Mets, even if that former Met only played three games for them. Gary Sanchez had two chances to bury the Mets and missed. First, he came up with the bases loaded in the 3rd after Jake Cronenworth bunted to load the bases with one out. Ron Darling said that he didn't like the bunt because one ground ball from Sanchez meant the end of the inning. A prescient moment by Ronnie.
Then, Sanchez had a chance to put the Padres up in the 8th as he hit a screamer to the left field cordner, but Tommy Pham ran it down to send everyone's heart rate back to normal levels.
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