Mets' Clay Holmes, Sean Manaea do job on the mound, club hits four homers in rout of Padres
The Mets' Pete Alonso watches his second inning home run against the San Diego Padres at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Every time the Mets hit a homer Tuesday night, the Citi Field PA system would blare “Stayin’ Alive” — the Bee Gees song that serves as a jaunty, almost maniacal tribute to, well, staying alive in a city known for breaking its own.
It’s a remarkably upbeat disco tune, given the subject matter, but maybe jaunty and maniacal is about the only thing that’s going to save this Mets team from the tepid play that’s all but doomed this season. It sure worked against the Padres, after all.
Staring down the brink of oblivion, the Mets, who got creative by starting Clay Holmes and having Sean Manaea piggyback off him, cued the Bee Gees plenty of times Tuesday, beating the Padres, 8-3, for their second straight win. This comes off an eight-game losing streak that nearly saw them lose the third and final wild-card spot, and in the wake of Pete Alonso’s walk-off homer Sunday.
With the Giants and Diamondbacks playing each other, they at least managed to lose no ground, keeping a 1 1⁄2 game lead in the standings with 11 games left.
The plan to make the most out of Holmes’ short outings, and reset Manaea, who’s struggled since his return from the injured list, worked as well as anyone could have hoped. Holmes limited the Padres to two runs over four innings while Manaea allowed one run over the last five. Manager Carlos Mendoza plans to repeat the process Sunday against the Nationals, though he might flip the two.
“Sean, he’s one of the best guys in the game,” Holmes said. “Everybody that’s been teammates with Sean loves him . . . I think we all believe in him, in what he can do and we know he’s going to be a big part of what we do down the stretch here and it was huge tonight.”
It helped that the Mets scored five runs in the first off Michael King, and saw homers from Brett Baty, Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Cedric Mullins.
The offense was able to build off itself in a way it so rarely has this year, with Lindor, Juan Soto, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo kicking off the game with four straight singles, with Nimmo’s line drive to left knocking in Lindor with the game’s opening run. With the bases loaded, though, Mark Vientos hit a comebacker for a 1-2-3 double play, cutting down Soto at the plate.
But where the Mets this season would generally wilt after a play like that, Jeff McNeil was able to add on: He lined King’s first-pitch sweeper over the first-base bag for a two-run double to bring up Baty, who blasted a fastball down the middle of the plate 416 feet to right-center for a 5-0 lead. It was Baty’s 17th homer of the season.
“We were on the heater right from the start,” Baty said. “We had a tough stretch [with four losses in] Philly, but you [get] through them . . . just thought we should try to win every single night.”
The two runs off Holmes came on solo shots from Jackson Merrill in the first and Jake Cronenworth in the second. He gave up three hits with a walk and two strikeouts, and came out after four innings so Manaea could face back-to-back lefties.
Lindor and Alonso hit solo home runs in the second, while Mullins’ fourth-inning homer put the Mets up 8-2. King allowed eight runs and 10 hits with no walks and two strikeouts over three innings.
Manaea, who’s struggled but had a strong final three innings in his previous outing against the Phillies, picked up where he left off, allowing just one baserunner until there was one out in the eighth and he gave up a solo homer to Freddy Fermin.
“I think he’s elite,” Baty said of Manaea. “I think he was his best self.”
Added Mendoza: “He used the aggressiveness, competed in the strike zone, his ability to elevate the fastball, but [I also think] there’s just conviction there . . . There’s a lot to like.”
The lefty gave up the one run and four hits with no walks and four strikeouts over an economical 71 pitches — his best outing since late July.
“It feels good but I can’t let my guard down,” Manaea said. “I think that’s probably how I got into this situation in the first place . . . I kind of backed myself in a corner and started punching my way out.”
The rest of this team is in much the same situation, but Tuesday had potential, and the exhale in Flushing was palpable.
You could feel the Citi breakin’ and everybody shakin’, and the Mets? They stayed alive.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
