Mets 6, Reds 4 10 innings (Citi Field, Flushing, NY)
Mets Record: 77-64
Mets Streak: W8
Mets Last 10: W9
WP: Jose Butto (7-3) LP: Justin Wilson (1-5)
Seat On The Korner: Mark Vientos
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.
Today's Seat On The Korner goes to Mark Vientos, whose bookend two-run homers started off the Mets' scoring in the first and ended the game in the 10th. In-between, Vientos also singled to give him a three-hit, four RBI night. Vientos has 24 home runs and 62 RBI since joining the Mets, is fifth in the league in slugging percentage, has hit safely in 16 straight home games and had played a surprisingly good third base. Who knows what his stats might have been had he, and not Bret Baty, started the year at the hot corner?
Need To Know
The win was the Mets eighth in row, their longest winning streak of the season. They have won nine of their last ten, 12 of their last 15 and 15 of their last 20.
This was the Mets' 10th walkoff win of the season, second most in the major leagues behind the Giants.
The Mets are 13 games over .500, their high-water mark and 24 games better than their low point of 11 under on June 2.
The Mets failed to move ahead of the Braves, who beat the Blue Jays Cardinals, but at this writing, both appered to be gaining a game in the Diamondbacks, who were trailing the Astros, 8-0 in the sixth.
Jeff McNeil left the game in the sixth after being hit in the wrist by a pitch an inning earlier. The injury was described as a bruise. His replacement, Jose Iglesias, had a pinch single that gave the Mets a temporary lead.
The Diaz brothers, Edwin and Alexis, pitched against each other for the first time and each recorded perfect ninth innings.
The series continues Saturday with a 4:10 start. Jose Quintana gets the ball for the Mets against the well-traveled TBD for the Reds.
Turning Point
Do you have to ask? In a game that lived and died by the two-run homer, it was the last one-- the fourth of the game -- that was both the turning point and the game-ender.
Three Keys
The Bullpen Comes Up Big
Reed Garrett, Edwin Diaz and Jose Butto all pitched hitless ball over the final 3.1 innings, with Garrett taking over for starter Sean Manaea in the seventh, Diaz striking out the side in a perfect ninth and Butto keeping the ghost runner from advancing in the 10th. When you're hot, everything seems to be firing on all cylinders.
Manaea Effective, With Two Big Asterisks
Sean Manaea again pitched into the seventh, stuck out nine and allowed only three hits, BUT...... two of the hits were two-run homers, by Elly De La Cruz and T.J. Friedl. It was the first time in seven games that a Met pitcher had allowed a home run, and both of them wiped out two-run leads. De La Cruz has 23 home runs and 62 stolen bases, numbers almost as gaudy as Francisco Lindor (see below). So the book on Manaea is: not a bad outing, but we've come to expect more.
MVP Watch
Francisco Lindor led off the first with a single (and scored on Mark Vientos' first home run). That extended his hitting streak to 16 games and his on-base streak to 34 games. The last time a Met had a 16-game hitting streak was in 2019 (JeffMcNeil); the last time a Met had a 34-game on base streak was in 2020 (Brandon Nimmo). By the way, Lindor is not close to the team record for consecutive games on base: that was John Olerud, who reachd base in 47 consecutive games in 1999.
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