Tyrone Taylor capped a five-run fifth inning with a pinch-hit home run, Clay Holmes threw seven shutout innings and the visiting New York Mets made it two straight blowouts over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night with a 9-0 victory.
Mark Vientos had three hits and scored twice for New York, which has rebounded from a 7-2 series-opening drubbing with 10-3 and 9-0 triumphs.
Staked to a 3-0 lead in the second inning that was aided by a double-error in the Giants infield, Holmes (2-0) allowed just three singles on his 90-pitch night. He walked two and struck out four.
The Mets led 3-0 until breaking the game open in the fifth, which featured RBI singles by Bo Bichette and Vientos.
Giants starter Landen Roupp (1-1) was pulled after Vientos’ two-out hit, but with reliever Ryan Borucki scheduled to face Jared Young, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza called upon Taylor, who launched a two-strike offering over the fence in center field for a three-run homer.
Young and subsequently Taylor were playing in place of Juan Soto, who experienced tightness in his right calf in the first inning of Friday’s win. While not ruling out a stint on the injured list, the Mets have listed Soto as day-to-day.
Roupp was charged with seven runs (six earned) on seven hits in his 4 2/3 innings. He walked one and struck out seven.
The Mets tacked on a final run in the seventh when Taylor made it a four-RBI game as a substitute with a run-scoring single.
Tobias Myers retired all six men he faced to complete the Mets’ first shutout of the season.
Brett Baty had a single and a double and scored twice for the Mets, while Bichette and Marcus Semien chipped in with two hits apiece in a 12-hit attack.
Corner infielders Matt Chapman and Jerar Encarnacion, both of whom were charged with errors on Carson Benge’s groundball that plated two runs in the second inning, had hits for the Giants, as did Jung Hoo Lee.
