WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — For the first time in three weeks, the Mets have won back-to-back games.
All it took was a trip to the Little League World Series, an offensive outburst against Seattle’s George Kirby and a solid start from Clay Holmes.
Losers of 14 of 17 heading into the game, the Mets remained a game ahead of Cincinnati for the third and final NL wild-card spot with the 7-3 victory at the Little League Classic at Bowman Field, capped by Mark Vientos’ three-run, opposite-field homer in the fifth.
Francisco Lindor had another multihit game with three more hits, and Francisco Alvarez had three hits before he was forced from the game after an apparent right wrist injury in the seventh.
That was the lone negative for the Mets.
Holmes had completed four innings just once in his previous three starts and was coming off his worst outing of the season.
But in his return to the ballpark where he blew another game on his way to losing his closing job with the Yankees last year, the right-hander rebounded.
His night got off to a shaky start when Holmes drilled Randy Arozarena with a 92 mph sinker with his first pitch of the game Sunday.
He recovered to whiff the majors’ home run leader, Cal Raleigh, then got Julio Rodríguez to hit into an inning-ending double play.
Lindor, who had a fifth-straight multihit game, opened the bottom of the inning with a base hit to right but was picked off first.
The Mets took the lead with a three-run second with four straight hits to open the inning.
It started with singles by Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil before Alvarez followed with an RBI double to left-center that Rodríguez couldn’t corral, scoring Alonso.
With the infield drawn in, Brett Baty smoked a single to center to drive in the second run of the inning.
A Vientos sacrifice fly made it 3-0 against Kirby, who’d allowed just two earned runs over 19 innings in his previous three starts.
The Mariners got to Holmes and the Mets in the fourth thanks to another mistake by Lindor.
After Rodríguez began the inning with a double, Holmes got Josh Naylor looking, and a Eugenio Suárez groundout moved Rodríguez to third.
Jorge Polanco hit a soft liner up the middle, and Lindor, shaded that way, appeared to be in position to make an easy play, but he misjudged his leap and the ball went into center for a questionable run-scoring single to cut the Mets lead to 3-1.
Dominic Canzone’s single put runners on the corners, and J.P. Crawford walked to load the bases for Cole Young, who popped out to short to end the 31-pitch inning.
Kirby’s night ended in the fifth, his second-shortest outing of the season, when the Mets tacked on four more runs.
Vientos, who’d snapped a 1-for-11 rut with a sacrifice fly and a single, hit a three-run, two-out homer.
Cedric Mullins, also slumping, doubled and scored when Lindor doubled to make it 7-1 to knock Kirby out of the game.
By that time, the Mets had a dozen hits.
The Mariners didn’t go down quietly, as Raleigh hit his 47th homer — a two-run shot off Reed Garrett — in the seventh.
But the Mets held on to win after not having won consecutive games since their seven-game winning streak ended on July 27.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
