Mets break out with RISP to back brilliant Manaea

ST. LOUIS -- The best way for the New York Mets to escape a stretch of doldrums hitting with runners in scoring position was evidently to get on the board without a hit at all and then confidently build from there.

Pete Alonso dashed home from third base on a second-inning wild pitch by Andre Pallante for a lead that New York would not relinquish, breaking out the bats en route to a 6-0 victory over St. Louis in a makeup game at Busch Stadium on Monday. The victory made a tough trip worth the travel as the Mets put distance between themselves and another contender for a National League Wild Card spot.

“What we're going through right now, we knew that we were going to be facing these types of challenges,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “At the end of the day, they’re big league players, we’re a big league team, and our job is to continue to win baseball games regardless of the circumstances.”

The Mets were just 6-for-35 with runners in scoring position in their weekend series against the Los Angeles Angels as they dropped two of three. That performance, in part, prompted Mendoza to reshuffle his batting order, sliding Alonso to fifth in the lineup, his lowest starting lineup spot since he hit sixth in the first game of a doubleheader on Sept. 26, 2020.

On Monday, they were 2-for-7 in those situations, but those two hits combined to score four runs.

“It’s always important for us to start putting pressure on the other team,” Mendoza said. “It was pretty tough today with the shadows, so you knew it was going to be a low-scoring game.”

Tyrone Taylor’s bases-loaded double in the fifth inning scored three runs and put the game fully out of reach. Harrison Bader, who was drafted by the Cardinals and played parts of six seasons in St. Louis, added two doubles and an RBI of his own. Jeff McNeil blasted his 10th homer of the season with a hard shot down the right-field line in the sixth inning.

“Anticipate pitches,” Taylor said of his approach against Pallante, whose 61.3% ground-ball rate this season far exceeds the league average of 44.5%. “Anticipate a sinker and just try to make adjustments really.”

“Mendy looks like a genius in that. I think he picked the right guy for the job in the given situation,” Bader said of Taylor, who was moved up to second in the order as part of Monday’s shuffle. “He came through, and that speaks volumes to Tyrone’s game, but also speaks volumes to our offense as a whole.”

“I don’t think you’ll see [Taylor] in the two-hole tomorrow, but that’s baseball, too,” Mendoza said with a laugh.

Sean Manaea was brilliant in limiting the Cardinals’ offense, tossing seven shutout innings and striking out 10. It was Manaea’s second consecutive start of seven scoreless innings and the third time this year he’s reached double digits in strikeouts. He whiffed 11 Twins in his previous start on Tuesday and struck out 10 against Arizona on June 1.

“Impressive,” Mendoza said. “What an outing. Now back-to-back. The way he dominated that lineup, pretty good lineup there. Complete control of the game.”

“I’m getting ahead of guys,” Manaea explained. “Really using my fastball to get ahead of guys, and the sweeper’s been good as a first pitch or trying to get back foot to guys.”

Monday’s game, rescheduled from a weather postponement on May 8, required the Mets to fly from Los Angeles to St. Louis for a one-day stay before resuming their road trip Tuesday in Colorado. When they take the field against the Rockies, the Mets will be starting their third game in three time zones in a three-day span.

“I think we all are in consensus that we wouldn't want it any other way,” Bader said. “It’s like a thing in baseball. We always say, like, nobody cares. The game doesn't care. The game doesn’t have feelings about what you're going through, whatever is happening off the field, your travel schedule, the heat, all these things.

“If no one cares, then why should we? So we put our heads down, we prepare the same exact way. We accept the challenge with grace. We fight like hell to do our best to succeed.”