Juan Soto homers twice as Mets’ offense busts out in much-needed win over Braves
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That’s more like it.
After losing 10 of 11 games — mostly to NL East teams — to fall out of the division lead, and with nearly every area of the roster struggling, the Mets returned to front-runner form on Wednesday.
They got a pair of homers from Juan Soto , a breakout from much of the slumping lineup and a solid bounce-back start from Clay Holmes in a 7-3 win over Atlanta on another steamy night at Citi Field.
Asked if the convincing victory eased some of the team’s frustration, Soto said, “Ain’t no frustration. It’s just another game. We definitely wanted it. We’ve been looking for it the last week and to finally get it, we’ll start over again and go from here.”
The team would like to put most of the past two weeks behind them, a stretch in which they looked quite vulnerable — with president of baseball operations David Stearns saying earlier in the week there were no easy fixes.
But against a Braves team that had won the first five meetings between the two clubs this season, the Mets looked just fine.
The offense took advantage of facing the youngest player in the majors, right-hander Didier Fuentes, a 20-year-old making his second MLB start. They put up five runs in the fourth to break the game open.
About the only thing that went wrong was right-hander Jonathan Pintaro couldn’t finish the ninth and Edwin Díaz was forced to close it out.
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The sizzling Soto got the Mets’ decisive fourth going with a 413-foot leadoff homer to center to give them a one-run lead. He added a second homer to start the seventh, his team-high 19th of the season.
After Soto homered in the fourth, Alonso was hit by a pitch and went to third on Jeff McNeil’s double to left.
Starling Marte ’s sacrifice fly to deep center made it 3-1 and sent McNeil to third.
With the infield in, Brett Baty singled to right, giving the Mets a 4-1 lead.
Ronny Mauricio , who got the Mets on the board in the third inning with a leadoff homer, delivered a base hit, as did Hayden Senger .
A Francisco Lindor sacrifice fly added another run, as did Brandon Nimmo ’s base hit to center before Soto struck out to end the inning.
It was a welcome eruption for a team that has struggled to score for most of the 11-game free fall that cost them the division lead as every hitter in the lineup had a hit or an RBI.
“It’s a sign that we’re gonna start turning the tide,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of the lineup. “That’s what we’re capable of and we haven’t seen that during this stretch.”
Holmes helped, as well.
Despite walking three batters in the first three innings, the right-hander was solid again and gave up just one run in five innings, but his pitch count was driven up to 96 in part due to four walks.
He also had some good fortune.
After he opened the game by whiffing the red-hot Ronald Acuña Jr. , Holmes waked Matt Olson on four pitches and then gave up a booming fly ball to center by Marcell Ozuna , but the versatile McNeil — starting in center — got to the fence, timed his leap perfectly, and robbed Ozuna of what would have been a two-run homer.
Mauricio’s rocket homer to right — his third home run of the year — put the Mets up 1-0 before the Braves tied the game on Drake Baldwin ’s mammoth shot to center, a 433-foot blast on a 1-2 slider from Holmes with one out in the fourth.
The win, coupled with the Phillies loss, got the Mets back to within a half-game of first place. Soto said dealing with the rough patch in the season will help them later.
“You’ve got to learn how to handle it [and] know how to get out of it,” Soto said of the adversity. “That will be huge in the playoffs.”
