Mets get homers from Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Juan Soto to sweep Rockies
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor celebrates with teammates after hitting a home run during the fifth inning of a game against the Colorado Rockies on Sunday at Citi Field. Credit: Noah K. Murray
It’s simple: When Francisco Lindor homers, the Mets win.
Going into Sunday, the last 25 regular-season games that included a Lindor home run ended with a Mets victory.
Make it 26.
Lindor’s tiebreaking solo blast to leftfield in the fifth inning was the game-winner as the Mets completed a three-game sweep of Colorado with a 5-3 victory before a sellout crowd of 43,224 at Citi Field.
Asked what that stat means to him, Lindor said: “That I need to keep hitting home runs. No, it’s not me . . . At the end of the day, it’s an overall win. It’s not me.”
The 26-game streak of wins when Lindor homers is the second longest in MLB since 1900, according to Elias. The Dodgers won 29 straight regular-season games in which Carl Furillo homered from 1951-53. Lou Gehrig (1927-28 Yankees) and Ken Caminiti (1997-98 Padres) also were at 26 games.
Another stat: The Mets are 1-0 all-time when Lindor, Pete Alonso and Juan Soto homer in the same game. Yes, they all went deep on Sunday, and that was a first for the Mets.
Even though no one on the Mets wanted to say it, the victory also was a little bit about the opponent. In completing a 7-2 homestand, improving to 24-7 at Citi Field and getting to a season-high 15 games over .500, the Mets (37-22) handed woeful Colorado its 50th loss in 59 games.
The Mets will see the Rockies again next weekend in Denver. Before that: A four-game series with the reigning World Series champion Dodgers in Los Angeles starts Monday night.
“You want to win series regardless of who you’re playing because they’re big-league players,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “They’re big-league teams. Anybody can beat anybody at any given day.”
Sunday’s route to victory was not easy. Colorado lefthander Carson Palmquist, making his fourth big-league start, shook off his 8.79 ERA and struck out six of the first 10 Mets batters.
“He’s kind of funky and [has] a tough release,” Alonso said. “Obviously, a lot of funk coming out of that windup. His stuff was playing up today. He had really good stuff. I’m just really happy that we were able to capitalize and make adjustments. I mean, that’s what this game is about, and we were able to do that very well.”
The Rockies took a 1-0 lead in the third on Orlando Arcia’s leadoff home run off Clay Holmes that tipped off the glove of a leaping Tyrone Taylor in right-centerfield.
The second time through the order ended up being Palmquist’s undoing. He walked Starling Marte to open the fourth and hit Soto with a pitch. Alonso then launched a three-run home run to right to give the Mets a 3-1 lead.
Alonso’s 12th home run gave him sole possession of fourth place on the franchise RBI list with 632. He had been tied with Howard Johnson.
The Rockies tied it in the fifth when Tyler Freeman hit a two-run homer off Holmes. It was Freeman’s first home run of the season.
No worries, though. Facing Palmquist in the fifth, Lindor hit his 13th home run to give the Mets a lead they would not relinquish.
“Francisco coming up huge with that homer was massive,” Alonso said. “Us getting the lead there was big-time, and then Juan doing his thing, putting an unbelievable swing . . . it was just like a 2-iron out to right-center. Beautiful swing on just a tough pitch.”
Soto hit a solo shot in the eighth, his 10th home run and second in two days. He went down on one knee to crank out the 3-and-2 offering from righthander Zach Agnos.
Holmes (6-3, 3.07 ERA) needed only 85 pitches to go seven innings, the longest outing of the converted reliever’s career. He allowed three runs and three hits, hit a batter and struck out three. Reed Garrett pitched a scoreless eighth, striking out two to lower his ERA to 0.70.
Edwin Diaz, who entered having retired 30 straight batters, gave up a leadoff single by Sam Hilliard in the ninth but struck out the next three batters for his 13th save. In his last four games, Diaz has struck out 10 of 15 batters faced.
Notes & quotes: The Mets’ 24-7 home record is their best in franchise history through 31 games . . . Brandon Nimmo, who left Saturday’s game with a cramping calf, did not start but entered for defense in the seventh and went 0-for-1.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
