QUEENS, N.Y. — All it took was one inning to salvage the New York Mets’ day and, for those who enjoy inhabiting dramatics, save the 2024 season already.
After being no-hit for seven innings in the second game of their doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers and 13 ranging back to the sixth inning of the first, Pete Alonso tied things up at one apiece to lead off the bottom of the ninth with a solo home run off reliever Alex Faedo. Three batters later, Tyrone Taylor drove in Brett Baty, who had walked, with a single to left to walk the Mets off to their first win of the season, 2-1.
“It felt good, I’m just happy to help the team win,” Taylor said of his walk-off. “Hopefully we can get on a little bit of a roll here.”
It avoided the club’s worst start since 1963, as they now sit at 1-5.
“It’s nice to get the first one, finally,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after picking up his first win as Mets skipper. “I wish it had happened earlier but that’s baseball. About to get swept there in a doubleheader without much going offensively but then that last inning: Pete with the homer, a walk, and then Taylor. It feels good.”
The Tigers won the first game 6-3.
Starting pitcher Matt Manning and reliever Tyler Holton carried a combined no-hitter into the eighth inning which was broken up when Harrison Bader led off the penultimate frame with a clean single to left.
“I think after that [hit by Bader], it gives us guys a little sense of urgency, a sense of confidence,” Taylor said. “I’m glad we came away with the win.”
It was the only tangible offense the Mets could muster for the majority of the day. Not only were they no-hit for seven full innings but they were held hitless for the final six innings of the first leg of the doubleheader after Brett Baty’s RBI single with two outs in the fifth inning of that game.
Former Met shortstop Javier Baez scored the lone run for Detroit, driving in Colton Keith in the second inning with a single off of New York starter Jose Butto.
Butto provided the Mets with some much-needed length in his spot start after manager Carlos Mendoza used seven relievers in the first game of the doubleheader. Despite throwing 49 pitches across the first two innings, the right-hander gutted out six innings, allowing three hits and that one run with three walks and six strikeouts. He needed 41 pitches to get through his final four innings of work.
“It wasn’t the best start for me, but I was able to make adjustments and I was able to have success again,” Butto said through a translator. “My sinker, my changeup were running too far out. [Catcher Omar Narvaez and I] had a conversation and he set up more in the middle to let the pitch [ease over].”
Mets reliever Reed Garrett pitched the final three innings, allowing just two hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
“[It was important] for Butto to come up today, give us six innings, Reed Garrett to give us three when we were pretty short…,” Mendoza said. “For [Butto] to go out there, continue to make pitches, continue to fight, and give us six solid innings — not only did he give us six, but he kept us in the game — he ended up throwing a really good game.”
It set the stage for Alonso’s heroics as he took an 0-1 changeup low in the zone and golfed it just over the left-center-field fence for his second home run of the season and the 500th RBI of his career.
“It was one of those that I felt [off the bat] and I was like, ‘Oh, nice,'” Alonso said. “I just saw it keep going and going. It was really fun. We definitely needed that one.”
Baty walked and was moved to second base for Taylor’s game-winner by a Starling Marte sacrifice bunt.
“I was trying to be on time for a heater but I had a good idea that slider was coming,” Taylor said, who went down and lifted the liner over third baseman Zach McKinstry into left.
*****
The Mets found a way to fumble their first of two chances in Game 1, allowing three runs in the 11th inning to fall to the Detroit Tigers 6-3 in Game 1 of their doubleheader at Citi Field.
Colt Keith put the Tigers up 4-3 with a one-out, RBI double in the top of the 11th inning off reliever Michael Tonkin, who was the man on the mound for the Mets’ 10th-inning implosion on Monday night. Gio Urshela put the visitors out of reach with a two-out, bloop single to score two more.
Detroit scored one run in each of the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to overturn a 3-0 Mets lead — a Riley Greene solo home run in the eighth off Mets reliever Adam Ottavino bringing Game 1 of the doubleheader back to square one.
Francisco Alvarez went 3-for-5 with a two-run double in the third inning but came up empty with a chance to win it in the ninth by grounding into an inning-ending double play with runners on first and second. Brett Baty made the first out of the inning after failing to get a sacrifice bunt down twice. He added an RBI single in the fifth for the hosts, but it was their last hit of the afternoon as they dropped to 0-5.
“We discussed that before the inning started,” Mendoza said. “[The Tigers] didn’t score [in the 10th]… it was just where we are in the game, you’re looking for one run to win the game.”
Alvarez’s go-ahead double down the left-field line gave the Mets their first lead since the fourth inning of Opening Day, scoring Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso with two outs.
Alonso’s second single of the afternoon with one out in the fifth inning knocked Tigers starter Casey Mize out of his first game back on a big-league mound since April 14, 2022, after undergoing Tommy John and back surgeries. He finished with three runs allowed on five hits with four strikeouts and two walks.
Against reliever Joey Wentz, Baty put the Mets up 3-0 — the run being charged to Mize — with two outs in that very same inning, driving in Alonso with a poke-job single to the opposite field in right.
“I thought we had some better at-bats earlier in the game,” Mendoza. “That two-out double by Alvarez… I thought overall we had better at-bats.”
Mets starter Adrian Houser’s debut meandered into the sixth inning but was done without recording an out in the frame when he allowed a lead-off walk and single to put Tigers runners on the corners. Reliever Brooks Raley yielded a sacrifice fly from pinch-hitter Andy Ibanez to get the Tigers on the board.
Houser’s leash was short, lasting just 67 pitches while allowing just one run on three hits with three strikeouts and three walks.
Detroit got within one run in the seventh when a wild pitch by Jake Diekman scored Gio Urshela from third before Greene erased the Tigers’ deficit with one out in the eighth inning when he launched a solo home run into the Mets’ bullpen off Ottavino.
