Mets are 1-0 in July as Justin Verlander shuts down Giants
New York Mets starting pitcher Justin Verlander reacts after he struck out San Francisco Giants' Brandon Crawford for the end of the top of the seventh inning at Citi Field on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
There was a good bit of magical thinking to Buck Showalter’s theory, but maybe, when everything else has failed, a little bit of magic doesn’t hurt.
“People say, ‘Oh, it’s just another day, just another month,’ but I don’t look at it that way,” he said before the Mets’ 4-1 win over the Giants on Saturday at Citi Field. “I’m glad June is over, but it’s only worthwhile if July is better.”
That’s right — the Mets finally turned the literal page on a horrific June in which they lost 14 1⁄2 games in the divisional standings and went a woeful 7-19. And though it would be hard to replicate that sort of ineffectiveness, the three July 1 home runs and a sterling performance by Justin Verlander certainly represented a better-than-expected start.
Verlander went seven strong innings, looking like his vintage self and mostly saving a bullpen that routinely had been victimized the past week.
Francisco Alvarez, Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Lindor hit solo homers in the third inning to help snap a three-game losing streak that featured two late-inning collapses. Drew Smith and Adam Ottavino pitched a scoreless inning each, making it the first time in seven games that the bullpen has not allowed a run.
“He was great today,” Alvarez said of Verlander through an interpreter. “Whenever he sees me, he pulls me aside and says, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a good day today. We’re going to go deep into the game. We’re going to win.’ He tells me a lot of positive things, and that’s what he was able to do.”
Alvarez had a pretty good day, too — homering for the first time since June 10 in a third inning in which the Mets feasted in a wholly unfamiliar way.
Giants starter Anthony DeSclafani allowed all three homers. Alvarez started it off with one out, smacking a belt-high sinker 416 feet to center for his 13th homer of the season — a franchise record for rookie catchers. One batter later, Nimmo blasted a 2-and-2 slider 406 feet the other way for his 12th home run of the year. Lindor made it back-to-back jacks with a 403-foot home run to center for a 3-0 lead.
It was Nimmo’s fourth homer in five games and it came off the bat at 111.8 mph, making it the hardest hit of his career. It also was a fitting way to celebrate the seven-year anniversary of his first major-league homer.
“It’s always rewarding,” he said. “It was kind of fitting that on [the anniversary] I was able to put a punctuation mark and hit the hardest home run in my career so far.”
The Mets got one more run off reliever Sean Manaea in the fourth. Pete Alonso led off with a walk and scored one out later on Tommy Pham’s double into the leftfield corner. It was Pham’s ninth double and 23rd RBI in the past 27 games — a stretch in which he’s hit .362.
The Giants didn’t get on the board until the seventh. Former Met J.D. Davis led off with a single and moved to third on Alonso’s throwing error, his second in as many games. Davis eventually came around to score on a double play, and the inning got far dicier than that as Showalter and the Mets’ porous pen all but willed its co-ace to finish the inning.
Blake Sabol doubled and Verlander walked Austin Slater — something that finally put the bullpen in motion — to bring up Brandon Crawford. He battled for seven pitches, and nearly lined an extra-base hit that went just foul, before Verlander struck him out swinging on a full-count slider at the knees.
“Definitely a huge step in the right direction,” Verlander said. The seventh “was a big spot and you want to pick your teammate up and, as a pitcher, to work that hard the whole game and be able to — you’re kind of at the end of your rope — to make the last pitch and set your team up for success and give us a good chance to win, it feels incredible.”
Verlander threw 102 pitches, including 29 in the seventh, allowing no earned runs in seven innings with one walk and six strikeouts. It’s the fifth straight home start in which he’s allowed one run or fewer.
And sure, thinking that turning the page on the calendar can turn the page on a season is the longest of long shots, but Nimmo will give it a go.
“It’s how we drew it up” before the season, he said of the win. “You’re just trying to get things going in the right direction but sure, if the guys want to look at it as ‘hey, it’s a new month and it’s a clean slate’ — anything that’s positive I [can] get behind.”
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
