The New York Mets are steadily finding ways to win games of late despite concerning and sloppy play from their fielding unit. The Mets secured a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates in their series opener on Monday night. The victory improved them to 8-8 in the young 2024 MLB season. They are now 0.5 games back from the No. 2-seeded Philadelphia Phillies (9-8) in the NL East.
Mets hitters connected well at the plate in the win over the Pirates
New York committed no fielding errors on the day. When factoring their strong series finale against the Kansas City Royals on Monday, they’ve dropped their league-leading 1.71 errors per game down to 0.71 errors per contest. Adrian Houser
At the plate, the Mets saw four batters produce doubles in the affair. Harrison Bader came through and led the way for their hitting unit. He notched one run and two RBIs behind a .304 batting average for the game. They also got strong contributions from Starling Marte, Bret Baty, and DJ Stewart.
Harrison Bader’s heroics helped the Mets put the Pirates away late
On the pitching side, Adrian Houser tossed 5.1 innings and put away five batters to the tune of a 4.70 ERA. He did allow an RBI single from Andrew McCutchen at the top of the sixth inning before getting called.
Drew Smith caused the last of the bleeding in relief of Houser as he coughed up an RBI triple to Connor Joe and another run generated from a sacrifice fly by Jared Triolo in the same inning. Though, the Mets’ bullpen finished strong and allowed no further runs the rest of the way.
Bader’s go-ahead double in the eighth inning broke a 3-3 tie after the Mets were able to close the 3-0 gap in the bottom of that game-breaking sixth inning from the Pirates. His heroics allowed Jeff McNeil and Stewart to score. He stole third in the same drive before Brandon Nimmo’s grounder brought him in for the game-sealing run.
The Mets earned their fourth win in their last five games. Most importantly, they improved upon their careless and uncharacteristic mistakes for the second straight game. They’ll look to take this momentum into their second game against Pittsburgh on Tuesday night.