Resiliency the key as Mets rally vs. Braves

Until the seventh inning on Tuesday, the Mets had no answers for Charlie Morton, particularly James McCann, who fanned on a fifth-inning curveball that wasn’t even close to the strike zone.

But McCann had the last laugh against Morton, skying a cutter into the seats in the seventh to spark the Mets in a 4-3 win over the Braves at Truist Park. McCann’s homer, plus a two-out RBI single from Francisco Lindor, allowed the Mets to turn a late rally into a series-opening win.

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Given the Mets’ recent offensive struggles -- they were batting .202 and averaging 2.4 runs in 14 games prior to Tuesday -- McCann hopes one uplifting half-inning can lead to many, many more.

“You’re always gonna be able to look back over the course of the season and see different points that are turning points, whether they’re good or they’re bad,” McCann said. “So hopefully, the seventh inning today is a rallying point that we can take into the All-Star break and then beyond.”

The seventh-inning surge followed a stretch of futility against Morton, who after six innings extended his scoreless streak to 20 2/3 innings (including seven one-hit frames against the Mets last week).

Dominic Smith led off the seventh with a full-count single, and Kevin Pillar followed by working a seven-pitch walk. Up next was McCann, who fell behind, 1-2, thanks in part to another whiff on a Morton curveball well out of the zone.

Two pitches later, though, McCann found a pitch worth whacking out of the yard.

“[Morton] made a mistake, and I was just the one that was able to cash in,” said McCann, who credited Smith and Pillar for working tough at-bats beforehand.

Something clicked for the Mets in that inning. Manager Luis Rojas believes his team’s adjustment centered on pitch selection: With the way Morton was commanding his high-90s fastball and his torpedo-like curveball, hitters needed to zero in on an offering they wanted to attack.

“You couldn’t just try to see what was coming,” Rojas explained. “You had to commit to one pitch, and I think the guys did that in the seventh. And that’s when McCann sat on that [cutter], and he got it.”

After McCann’s homer, pinch-hitter José Peraza stung a ground-rule double, and Lindor sent him home on a line-drive single to center.

Unlike McCann, who entered with an .867 OPS in his past month’s worth of games, Lindor has been dealing with the same offensive woes as the entire team.

“This hit, definitely, lifts the confidence even more,” Rojas said of Lindor’s clutch knock. “So I think this is something that can carry over for him to keep swinging a hot bat.”

The Mets need more hot bats in general, but Tuesday was an example of what can happen when they string some hits together. And though the offense has struggled recently, it doesn’t quit: In the past six games, the Mets have scored only one run in the first six innings, but they’ve scored 16 from the seventh inning onward.

“They feel that they’re gonna come back,” Rojas said. “They’re never just giving in. That’s what we saw today. Like, one inning and we turn it around. … The resiliency here, I think, is contagious.

“I know that the numbers are not blown up right now, but Lindor’s delivered a lot of big hits for us in wins,” he added. “And McCann has done it, too, since he started swinging a hot bat. … I know they’re gonna take off. They’re gonna end up hitting a lot better than the numbers show today.”