Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte, and Pete Alonso hit home runs in an eight-run, three-inning barrage between the second and fourth frames off starter Eduardo Rodriguez to keep the Mets rolling in an 8-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night at Citi Field.
A stellar night, which highlighted the Mets’ (21-9) dominance on both sides of the ball, ensured the club was off to its best 30-game start to a season in 19 years. They have also won 13 of their first 14 games at home, one of just 11 teams in MLB history to do that.
Lindor hit his sixth home run of the season to cap off a four-run second inning, which began with an RBI double from Tyrone Taylor and a run-scoring single by Jose Azocar. The star shortstop’s fly to left just cleared the top of the wall, which was upheld following an official review.
Marte made it 6-0 with no outs in the bottom of the third when he launched his second home run of the season. Alonso put the exclamation point on the Mets’ big night with his seventh big fly of the year, a no-doubter deep into the left-field seats.
While he moved to within 19 home runs of tying Darryl Strawberry’s career franchise home run record with the blast, Alonso also tied Ed Kranepool for fifth on the team’s all-time RBI list with 614.
Lindor also provided the first and final parts of a defensive masterclass in the fourth inning. The star shortstop reeled in a hot shot that bounced off the glove of a diving Mark Vientos at third base, adjusted, and made a quick throw across the diamond for the first out.
Center fielder Tyrone Taylor then submitted his candidate for catch of the year when he made a diving, backhanded snag deep in the left-center field gap on a liner delivered by Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Lindor then picked a short-hopper for the inning’s final out, making what would have been a challenging frame for starter David Peterson quite the opposite.
Peterson allowed one run on five hits with two strikeouts and zero walks over five innings. He has walked just one batter in his previous four starts.
