MIAMI — Interim manager Andy Green has loved the way the Mets have jumped on starting pitchers of late.
“We’ve put pressure on the other team,” Green said after the Mets’ 7-5 win against the Marlins on Tuesday. “Not waiting for them to throw the first punch. We have gone out there and thrown it and we threw a lot of them today.”
Francisco Lindor started it off on the first pitch he saw from Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara. Lindor took a 95.3 mph sinker in the bottom of the zone a Statcast-projected 405 feet to center field.
Lindor’s 17th homer of the season was also his 17th career leadoff blast as a Met, behind only Curtis Granderson and José Reyes, who are tied with 21.
“I was looking for a good pitch in the zone and he threw it there,” Lindor said in Spanish. “Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose and today was my turn [to help us win].”
For Lindor, the Mets are learning from every at-bat and play without anyone trying to be the hero.
“Everyone is like, ‘If I don’t do it, the next one will,’” Lindor said after going 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. “And that is contagious.”
In the top of the second, Francisco Alvarez singled before Lindor reached first after getting hit by a 90 mph cutter in the elbow area.
Juan Soto cleared the bases on another first-pitch sinker for a three-run homer, his 24th homer of the season.
“You can’t let [Alcantara] get on top of you because then it’s game over,” Soto said. “It’s one of those guys that you gotta get your shot early and can’t miss it.”
New York continued to add on in the third, with Brett Baty taking a 97.1 mph four-seamer deep to center field after a seven-pitch at-bat. He sent it a Statcast-projected 426 feet for his second-longest homer of the season.
Balancing that aggressive approach with the patience to wait for the right pitch is something Green has also appreciated.
“We did an unbelievable job of not chasing Sandy outside the zone,” Green said. “He usually throws so many strike-to-ball changeups, and you end up seeing a guy swing at them all the time, roll him over, hit him into double plays. We laid off that pitch all day long. He ended up with [four] walks he doesn’t typically have.”
Mets starting pitcher Sean Manaea also set the Mets up for success early. He finished the first inning with only four pitches and carried a perfect game with four strikeouts into the sixth with 52 pitches thrown and a 7-0 lead. The 34-year-old finished by allowing four runs on four hits before Green pulled him in the sixth.
“[The] sixth inning [has] just been a kryptonite to me,” Manaea said. “I don’t really know what is going on … in the last five to six games. It’s kinda hard not to think about. At this point, it’s just mental. I feel like I am making some good pitches, but one day I’ll figure it out.”
The left-hander has a 3.51 ERA with batters hitting .236/.296/.415 in innings 1-5, compared with a 7.68 ERA and a .329/.407/.594 slash line from the sixth inning on. Entering Tuesday, batters were hitting .333 against Manaea the third time through the lineup, compared with .246 in the first and .231 in the second, with a .702 slugging percentage (.418 in the first, .397 in the second) and a 1.098 OPS (.731 in the first, .693 in the second).
Despite that, Manaea has enjoyed watching the Mets’ defense play behind him throughout his outing and in recent weeks.
“Amazing,” Manaea said. “[Lindor] made that sick play. A.J. [Ewing] in the first. Defense has been nails for the last couple months.”
“For me, defense is the first thing,” Lindor said. “Being able to help the pitchers with my defense is what I like the most.”
“[Lindor] made some great plays out in the field, really kept that perfect game intact through five innings with his defense,” Green added. “Obviously, you love the first-pitch home run. That’s a fun way to start a baseball game. It lets everybody on the other team know, ‘We’re coming for you,’ and he set that tone for us today.”