The long ball might not be the sustainable way of winning, but it was good enough for the New York Mets to snap their season-worst seven-game losing streak on Saturday night, clubbing a franchise-record seven solo home runs in an 11-4 win over the Phillies in Philadelphia.
Brandon Nimmo and Juan Soto, who drove in four runs, accounted for two round-trippers apiece, while Francisco Lindor, Jared Young, and Francisco Alvarez also left Citizens Bank Park. This was just the fifth time in franchise history that the Mets hit seven or more home runs in a game, having last done so on July 19, 2021, against the Cincinnati Reds.
They fell just one homer shy of tying the franchise record, which was eight on Aug. 24, 2015, which also just so happened to come in Philadelphia against the Phillies.
With the win, the sputtering Mets (46-31) drew back into a tie for first place in the NL East with the Phillies, who thumped the Mets in the series opener 8-2 on Friday night.
New York starter Griffin Canning quickly coughed up an early lead given to him by Nimmo’s first-inning blast, allowing three runs in the first two innings to put the visitors in an all-too-familiar hole. But the third inning provided back-to-back-to-back homers by Lindor, Nimmo, and Soto — the first time the Mets have hit three consecutive home runs in a game since 2022 — to take a lead they ultimately would not relinquish.
Soto obliterated his second home run of the game in the top of the fifth, which left the bat at 109.5 mph and traveled 437 feet into the second deck in right field.
After Alec Bohm singled in a run to cut the Phillies’ deficit to one, the Mets scored six unanswered to put Saturday night’s affair away comfortably. Lindor doubled in a pair in the top of the sixth to make a 7-4 game on a fly down the right-field line that fooled Phillies right-fielder Nick Castellanos, who overran the ball and could only watch in foul territory as the ball appeared to strike off the foul pole upon first glance. Initially called a home run, it was brought back to just a two-bagger after an official review.
Young homered in the top of the eighth before Soto drove in his third and fourth runs of the night with a single. Alvarez capped it all off with his third home run of the season to left-center in the top of the ninth.
