Three Mets takeaways from the past week of games and trades
The Mets' Ronny Mauricio, right, celebrates with Brandon Nimmo after hitting a home run against the San Francisco Giants during the seventh inning of a game in San Francisco on Sunday. Credit: AP/Jed Jacobsohn
SAN FRANCISCO — Coming off a three-game sweep of the Angels at home, the Mets ended the week by terrorizing another West Coast team on its own turf, sweeping the Giants at Oracle Park.
Here are three takeaways from their series against the Giants:
1. The trade deadline is coming, and the Mets will be active
President of baseball operations David Stearns got the ball moving (literally) with a late-night deal Thursday that brought hard-throwing lefty Gregory Soto to the Mets from Baltimore, and he’s certainly looking to do more business.
Meeting with the media in the Oracle Park dugout Friday, Stearns said the Mets will continue to look for bullpen help, as the unit has been taxed by injury and heavy usage. Plenty of high-leverage arms are expected to be available — the Guardians’ Emmanuel Clase, the Cardinals’ Ryan Helsley and the Twins’ Jhoan Duran, to name a few — and the next few days will be buzzing with activity. Stearns said he is listening to everything but indicated that acquiring starting pitching help might be a little bit more difficult.
Third base doesn’t seem to be as high a priority as it was a few weeks ago, but extra offense couldn’t hurt. Centerfield could be the place for it, though Stearns said he would be comfortable continuing to use Jeff McNeil and Tyrone Taylor there as the situation warrants.
2. The lineup is getting longer
Though the Mets’ offense didn’t do too much in their final two games against the Giants, the lower half of the lineup — a point of weakness all season — is coming alive. Brett Baty took an eight-game hitting streak into Sunday. Mark Vientos is riding a six-game hitting streak and roped a two-run double Saturday that provided all the scoring in a 2-1 win.
On Sunday, Ronny Mauricio went 4-for-4 with a homer, a double and two RBIs. Francisco Alvarez was 2-for-4 and scored twice.
“We’ve seen it the past couple of weeks, the way they control the strike zone,” Carlos Mendoza said. “Alvy has been locked in, you know . . . Every time we get that bottom of the order doing what they’re doing now, [it puts the team] in a good spot.”
3. The pen is mightier
After a rough stretch, particularly in June, the bullpen looked very solid. With nine different relievers tossing 11 scoreless innings in three games against the Giants, they allowed only six hits in that span.
“We’ve got good arms there,” Mendoza said. “We saw it [Sunday] with the addition of Soto right away making an impact [by pitching a scoreless seventh], facing the top of the order and making it look easy . . . They’re important. We want to continue to give those guys an opportunity. They’re really good.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
