QUEENS, NY — Perhaps it happened later than expected, but this should become a normal occurrance for the New York Mets moving forward.
For the first time this season, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and Juan Soto homered, as the Mets completed their three-game sweep of the miserable Colorado Rockies with a 5-3 victory on Sunday afternoon at Citi Field.
“It’s fun to see them going deep in the same game,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We envisioned that when you got those three at the top. It’s pretty special. We saw it today, and hopefully, they get going here.”
It is the second straight game that Soto has gone deep — his solo shot coming off one knee in the bottom of the eighth inning — and that the Mets (37-22) have hit three home runs.
“I think he’s in a really good spot here,” Mendoza said of his superstar slow starter. “Even just some of the pitches that he’s fouling off, just the balance there at the end is a pretty good sign that he’s getting there. We’ve seen that at times, but I feel like the past few games, even when he’s not getting results, there’s something about his lower half… the balance, the conviction, there’s a lot to like.”
They took full advantage of the lean portion of their schedule, going 5-1 against the Chicago White Sox and Rockies after taking two of three from the defending-champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
A cross-country trip and a quick turnaround await, as the Mets visit the Dodgers for a three-game set starting Monday.
“It’s important [to stack these wins],” Mendoza said. “Even though it’s early, it’s baseball. Anything can happen, and you want to take care of business regardless of who you’re playing. They’re big-league players, these are big-league teams. Anybody can beat anyone on any given day.”
With the loss, Colorado is now 9-50, continuing the worst start by any team in the modern era of MLB history (1901).
“All these games matter, it doesn’t matter who you play,” Alonso said.
Alonso and Lindor’s blasts came in consecutive innings, with the Polar Bear giving the Mets a 3-1 lead in the fourth with his 12th of the year before Lindor broke a three-all tie one inning later with his team-leading 13th big fly.
Despite allowing two round-trippers, Mets starter Clay Holmes went a career-high seven innings, yielding three runs on three hits with three strikeouts and a walk. The former Yankees reliever turned Mets starter owns a 3.07 ERA through his first 13 starts in Queens, and is just 2.2 frames shy of tying his previous single-season career high in innings pitched.
The Mets were initially befuddled by Rockies starter Carson Palmquist, who entered Sunday’s affair with 13 runs allowed in his first 13.1 MLB innings pitched (8.78 ERA) with just six strikeouts across three starts.
But through three innings, the gangly left-hander had a 1-0 lead behind Orlando Arcia’s third-inning home run and had already struck out six Mets while allowing just one over the minimum — a Tyrone Taylor one-out single in the third.
There was no such trouble for the Mets in the fourth, though, as Palmquist walked Starling Marte and plunked Soto to lead off the frame. Alonso made him pay by taking an outside 1-2 fastball and driving it 407 feet into the right-field seats for his 12th home run of the season to put the hosts in front 3-1.
“A lot of funk coming out of the windup,” Alonso said of Palmquist. “His stuff was playing up today. He had really good stuff, and I’m just really happy we were able to capitalize and make adjustments.”
The blast gave Alonso 633 career RBI, which moved him into sole possession of fourth place on the Mets’ all-time list past Howard Johnson.
Holmes continued his recent struggles with the long ball, though, and gave his lead right back in the top of the fifth. After hitting Keston Hiura, he gave up a two-out, two-run homer to Tyler Freeman — his first of the season — to knot things back up.
After going his first seven starts without allowing a round-tripper, Holmes has now allowed seven in his last six outings.
Lindor got the lead right back for the Mets in the bottom of the fifth, when he launched his 12th home run of the season into the left-field seats on a 1-1 fastball that sat middle-middle. It was the star shortstop’s third home run in as many games.
Soto provided some necessary insurance when he cranked his 10th home run of the season off one knee — a middle-middle splitter from Colorado reliever Zach Agnos — 388 feet over the right-center-field fence.
“It’s good to take the pressure off at the end right there,” Soto said. “… I tried to get down there and get it. The one-knee thing, I never think about it. It just happens. I was just trying to square up the middle.”
