Clay Holmes shuts out SF Giants as NY Mets roll 9-0

The New York Mets walked out of Oracle Park with a 9-0 shutout win over the San Francisco Giants on Friday night, and it was never close. Clay Holmes was the story from the first pitch to the last out he recorded, and by the time he handed the ball off, the game was already over in every way that mattered.

Holmes went 7 innings, allowing 3 hits, walking 2, and striking out 4. His ERA sits at 1.42. He worked out of traffic in the second inning when Matt Chapman reached on a Bo Bichette throwing error, then retired the next 3 hitters without blinking. Through 6, the Giants had nothing. San Francisco’s best hitters — Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Luis Arraez — went a combined 1-for-9 against him with zero runs to show for it. Holmes didn’t overpower the Giants so much as he methodically dismantled them.

Tobias Myers handled the final 2 innings cleanly, striking out Devers to close out the eighth and keeping the zeroes on the board. The pitching staff’s combined line: 9 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs.

The Offense Did Its Part Early — Then Exploded

The Mets scratched across 3 runs in the second on a chain-reaction sequence that started with a Mark Vientos double, a Jared Young walk, a Marcus Semien single, and then a 2-run error that scored Vientos and Young. Luis Torrens added a ground-ball RBI to make it 3-0. Ugly for San Francisco, but the Mets took what was given.

Bo Bichette drove in a run with a single in the fifth to make it 4-0. Then the inning cracked open. Vientos singled home another run, and with Brett Baty on third and Vientos on first, Tyrone Taylor stepped in as a pinch hitter and launched a 3-run homer to center. 8-0. Game over.

Vientos finished 3-for-5 with 2 RBI and an OPS of 1.291 on the young season. He is hitting the ball as hard as anyone on this roster right now. Francisco Lindor went 0-for-5 with 2 strikeouts, and Jorge Polanco went 0-for-5 as well — the top of the order was quiet, but it didn’t matter. Carson Benge drew an error-assisted RBI and played a clean center field. Taylor added an RBI single in the seventh for good measure.