Mets demolish A’s to snap four-game skid in much-needed laugher
The Mets hit back at Austin Adams.
But more importantly, the Mets just hit.
Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor led an attack that turned 11 hits and two home runs into nine runs — four more than they had scored total during their four-game losing streak — to snap that skid in a 9-1 blowout of the A’s in front of 28,288 at Citi Field on Wednesday.
The Mets had not seen a win — or even a lead — since Thursday in Colorado and were in danger of matching their longest slide of the season. Instead, a team that had been outscored 31-5 over the four games found life and revenge.
Angry at Adams, a journeyman A’s reliever who escaped danger Tuesday and turned the Mets’ arm-raising, “OMG” gesture against them, the Mets scored three runs in the first four innings, which included a telling Lindor glance in Adams’ direction, and pulled away with a six-run seventh.
While rounding the bases on a third-inning homer, Lindor stole a glance toward the bullpens and raised and shook both arms in the air, seeming to use the dance move to deliver a message.
He denied directing the motion into the opposing bullpen and said it was toward his own — but one night after the Mets were shown up by Adams, they took the field with more bounce for reasons they did not want to disclose.
“I thought the energy today in general was really good,” Carlos Mendoza said on a night the dancing and air-slaps were constant, beginning with their very first hit. “From the first base hit we had [Jesse] Winker [celebrating with air-slaps] from the dugout to the bullpen. Today the guys showed up. It was a different energy — it was just different overall.”
The Mets’ lead arrived in the second, when Mark Vientos rifled what was ruled as an RBI double over the glove of third baseman Darell Hernaiz.
An inning later, Lindor turned on a Joey Estes fastball and catapulted his 100th home run as a Met to right.
The Mets took control in the fourth, when Alonso pummeled an Estes sweeper deep into the left-field seats for his 26th dinger of the year.
And the Mets took over in the seventh, when they sent 10 batters to the plate. Alonso, who had gone 1-for-16 with nine strikeouts during the four-game skid, added a two-run double in the frame for his fourth hit of the night in four at-bats.
“For us to be in the postseason, he’s going to be a huge part of the success that we have on a daily basis,” Lindor said of Alonso, whose OPS rose to .804. “We need Pete to continue to be Pete Alonso. He’s one of the best power hitters in the game.”
Alonso, sporting a shiny red nose after scraping it on the dirt making a diving stop on a ground ball Tuesday, said he physically feels “great,” with a laugh. He feels better when his batted balls find grass and even better when they find seats.
If there is another gear for the wild-card-hopeful Mets to reach, it probably resides in Alonso’s bat.
“He can carry a team,” Mendoza said of a first baseman who is having a relatively down season. “Hopefully that’s the case here where we can get Pete going and carry us for a few weeks. … If he gets going, it’s probably going to take some of the pressure off of the other guys.”
The other guys stepped up, too. The big seventh included consecutive walks to Vientos, Ben Gamel and Francisco Alvarez before Lindor (2-for-5 with the homer and two RBIs) smacked an RBI single.
Gamel scored on a wild pitch, Alvarez on a sacrifice fly from Brandon Nimmo and Lindor on a double from J.D. Martinez in the kind of inning the Mets (62-58) had waited nearly a week for. All the support was plenty for David Peterson (6 ¹/₃ innings allowing one unearned run), Huascar Brazoban, Danny Young and Adam Ottavino.
If there were any disappointment Wednesday, it came from Adams, a sudden enemy of Queens, remaining in the bullpen.
Not that the Mets were going to admit as much. There was more energy, more dancing and one more win than they had recorded in their previous four games.
“We just needed to respond,” Alonso said, perhaps referring to the skid and perhaps referring to an A’s reliever. “Every day we try to bring it. But I think for us, this was a really important game.”
