This Dude is turning lefties into leftovers.
Lucas Duda’s biggest flaw during his breakout 2014 season was an inability to handle left-handed pitching, but try stopping him now. The slugging Mets first baseman is tormenting all comers, and Thursday night it happened to be Mike Dunn’s turn.
In a disciplined seventh-inning at-bat, Duda went to a seventh pitch against the Marlins lefty reliever before slapping the go-ahead RBI single in the Mets’ 7-5 victory at Citi Field.
Duda finished 3-for-4 with two doubles, helping the Mets win their fifth straight and fourth in a row to begin their home schedule. The hit also lifted Duda to 4-for-8 (.500) against lefties, a season after he hit just .180 against southpaws.
“We’re 10 games in, so let’s not get too carried away with what’s going on,” Duda said. “It’s not like I’m laying out missiles against them.”
But manager Terry Collins doesn’t care how hard they are hit.
“He is absolutely revved up to show me he should play against left-handed pitching,” Collins said. “And I think that is great.”
Jerry Blevins, Carlos Torres and Jeurys Familia got the Mets to the finish line after Dillon Gee’s rough start and an equally shaky relief performance by rookie Rafael Montero.
Michael Cuddyer followed Duda with a RBI single in the seventh to give the Mets (7-3) a cushion.
“I would say a year ago, we don’t win tonight in that particular situation,” Collins said. “With David [Wright] out and some of the things that are going on, we just don’t come back in those games. Now we are.
“The mentality that is in the clubhouse right now is we’ve got to grind out nine [innings] and put together some decent at-bats and see what happens at the end of the game. For the most part, I think it has been impressive to watch every night, because we aren’t killing the ball.”
It took 5 minutes, 44 seconds on a replay challenge in the seventh for the Marlins to score the tying run that made it 5-5. Ichiro Suzuki was originally called out at the plate by umpire Eric Cooper on Travis d’Arnaud’s tag attempt, but the Marlins weren’t about to take no for an answer.
Dee Gordon hit a sharp grounder that Daniel Murphy stopped with the infield in.
Ichiro charged for the plate and stopped, then restarted after seeing Murphy’s throw was wide right. The diving Ichiro missed the plate on his first attempt, but inserted his hand on the second try.
“I didn’t tag him,” d’Arnaud said.
The Mets scratched for two runs in the sixth to take their first lead at 5-4. Cuddyer delivered a RBI single to tie the game after Duda had doubled for the second time in three innings and Eric Campbell’s sacrifice fly later in the inning gave the Mets their first lead.
Gee had a second straight subpar start, lasting just 5 ²/₃ innings in which he allowed four earned runs on five hits with seven strikeouts and two walks. The right-hander allowed a two-run homer to Giancarlo Stanton in the first and Martin Prado hit a solo blast in the fourth.
Montero entered with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth and walked Marcell Ozuna on a full-count fastball to give the Marlins a 4-3 lead. But Montero escaped the inning without further damage when Curtis Granderson raced to the right-field fence to snag J.T. Realmuto’s line drive.
Wilmer Flores unloaded with a three-run homer in the fifth that made it 3-3, after Jarred Cosart had frustrated the Mets early. Campbell and Juan Lagares singled in succession to begin the fifth before Flores’ homer erased the entire deficit. Before the homer, the slumping Flores was 4-for-26 (.153) with eight strikeouts.
Duda said it was a team effort.
“That is when you know things are going well, when everyone is contributing,” Duda said. “Hopefully we can continue playing like this and keep it going.”