© Vincent Carchietta | 2021 Aug 26
For the second straight game, Mets manager Luis Rojas pulled his starter out of the game prematurely. The Giants’ performances, two nights in a row, make that clear.
Wednesday, it was Taijuan Walker at 74 pitches in the seventh inning. He’d allowed a home run to Kris Bryant early, but was dealing otherwise before SF put two runners on via an error and bloop single. Rojas went to the bullpen, and Brandon Crawford opened the game up on the first pitch he saw with a two-run double.
What happened Thursday night was strikingly similar. Kris Bryant hit another homer, a 2-run shot, in the first inning off Mets starter Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco held San Francisco to just one baserunner — Tommy La Stella doubled in the third — and got through the seventh inning in 78 pitches. But then Rojas pinch-hit Brandon Drury for Carrasco, ending the right-hander’s night.
Drury struck out. At the turn of the inning, Mike Yastrzemski led off with a single up the middle off reliever Seth Lugo. Curt Casali took first when an inside two-seamer grazed his elbow. Darin Ruf punched a pinch-hit single to right field, scoring Yastrzemski easily from second and giving San Francisco the 3-2 lead.
Though Thursday was a much cleaner game than the previous night’s, the result was the same. The Giants pounced on Rojas’ managerial play. José Álvarez, who now hasn’t allowed a hit in his last eight appearances, cleaned up another mess.
The 3-2 win gives the Giants (83-44) their 11th series sweep of 2021 and improved to 5-1 on the year against the Mets — continuing their dominance of teams below .500. SF is a season-high 39 games over .500, a record it builds upon seemingly every day.
Kris Bryant got San Francisco off to a fast start with a two-run home run to left. His second homer in as many nights came on the first Carlos Carrasco pitch he saw, a slider over the plate, and the fourth total pitch Carrasco hurled.
Since joining the Giants, Bryant has hit six HRs and a .272 average while providing defensive versatility. His play has led to fans clamoring for Bryant to re-sign in free agency after the season, and Bryant hasn’t done much to calm them down. That continued hours before the game when he joined the “Murph and Mac Show,” reiterating that he — not agent Scott Boras — runs the show.
The Mets, meanwhile, entered the series as the second-worst scoring offense in MLB, ahead of only the Pittsburgh Pirates. That held against the Giants even with Francisco Lindor and Javier Báez in the lineup; New York scored just four runs in three losses.
And it wasn’t like San Francisco’s arms were flawless. Sammy Long made the best start of his MLB career in the opener, but still exited after 5.1 innings. The bullpen held up great in game 2 after a solid but not earth-shattering first start back from Johnny Cueto.
And Thursday, Alex Wood allowed at least one base runner every inning except the fifth — when Brandon Nimmo was called out under review for sliding off second base. The Mets just continued to hit into double plays — two more a game after they ran into five — and left nine runners on base.
It was only a matter of time before the Mets, no matter how feeble their offense looked this series and this series, executed. Pete Alonso scorched a low and inside 0-2 slider right inside the left field foul pole. The Mets’ most powerful slugger cracked the ball 107.9 mph off his bat and traveled 449 feet, per Baseball Savant, but looked as if it would’ve carried forever had it not caromed off Citi Field’s seating.
Then Drury pinch-hit for the dominating Carrasco. Lugo relieved him in the top of the eighth. He left before recording a single out. Although San Francisco couldn’t drive in any more runs with the bases loaded and no outs, Ruf’s pinch-hit single to put it ahead 3-2 was enough.
The Mets got to Dominic Leone in the eighth to load the bases, but José Álvarez saved the inning by forcing Jeff McNeil into an inning-ending groundout. McNeil, who also ended an inning with the bases loaded against Álvarez Wednesday, became yet another New York Met to trudge back to the dugout after failing to move runners in scoring position over and around the bases.
For the second consecutive game, the Mets underachieved — something equally accurate for their performance in Citi Field Thursday as it is for their overall season. The Giants, as they’ve done all year with lesser teams, took care of them.