When Luis Rojas woke up in the morning he knew he would be relying on a pitcher making his major league debut plus 2 hitters returning from the injured list to jumpstart the team and the Met manager got both of those things in a 7-3 win over the Atlanta Braves at CitiField.
Tylor Megill, in his major league debut combined with Corey Oswalt to give the Mets 6.2 innings of solid pitching and Edwin Diaz took care of the rest earning his 16th save by getting the last 5 outs of the game. Diaz has been doing more of that lately and Luis Rojas knew with an off day on Thursday his closer could give him some extra pitches on this night.
From an offensive standpoint, those 2 injured players returning to the lineup–Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto– had good nights each with 2 hits and Conforto’s tracer down the right field line set up a 2 run first inning which was followed up in the second frame with a McNeil RBI single and a Francisco Lindor 2 run homer that gave the Mets a 5-0 lead.
Lindor was in between McNeil and Conforto in tonight’s lineup and you can readily see that sitting between those 2 hitters allowed Lindor to see better pitches especially with runners on base. You should not underestimate the importance of that because this trio has spent little time together in that fashion in the lineup due to injuries and when you consider Pete Alonso, Dom Smith and James McCann now form the second trio of Met hitters in their lineup you can see when healthy how deep and talented this core offensive group can become.
The Mets are deep in the middle of the tough stretch of games and are 3-5 in the first 8 games of the stretch meaning that taking a series from the Phils this weekend could give them a 12 game split and more importantly, keep their position in the standings pretty much where it was at the start of the stretch.
Right now they are 38-31 4 games ahead of the Nats and 5 games ahead of both the Phils and Braves but more importantly that loss column lead is still significant–they lead the Nats by 5 in the loss column while they lead the Phils by 6 and the Braves by 7 in that important loss column. They have a tough 11 game stretch coming leading up to the 4th of July with 4 vs the Phils, a makeup game in DC, 3 in Atlanta, and 3 in the Bronx versus the Yanks. But with that NL East cushion a 6-5 or 5-6 11 game record would likely keep the cushion intact and would make those NL East teams realize they missed a golden opportunity to cut into the lead that the Mets possess.
The biggest reason why the Mets sit in that NL East penthouse is a 22-9 record at CitiField and they are holding their own in the NL East with a 16-13 record. That is the winning combination to earn a playoff spot–dominate at home and win your share of games inside your division. And the Mets have certainly done that despite the plethora of injuries that they have suffered. And we got a glimpse of what returning injured players could mean on this night. And the team is still missing Brandon Nimmo and JD Davis who could further lengthen this lineup with proven bats.
The 4 game series with the Phils is next on the docket for the Mets with a doubleheader on Friday after an off day on Thursday. It looks like David Peterson and Taijuan Walker will pitch in that twin bill followed by Jacob deGrom on Saturday night. Should be an interesting weekend at Citi and you wonder if Joe Girardi might attempt the same foolishness with deGrom that he did with Scherzer this past week. Only time will tell on that one.