The biggest surprise on Friday night at Citi Field was that it didn’t rain during the baseball game and the postgame fireworks still were canceled because of inclement weather.
The Mets beat the floundering Rockies, a team that has yet to record its 10th win with more than one-third of the season completed. Starter David Peterson continued a run of solid pitching performances. And the Mets got three solo homers — two by Francisco Lindor — but didn’t get a hit with runners in scoring position (0-for-2).
It all added up to a 4-2 victory before 41,270, the Mets’ fifth win in their last six games.
Juan Soto chipped in with two hits, including a run-scoring double, and made a stellar full-extension catch on the dead run on Ezequiel Tovar’s drive to right-centerfield to end the seventh inning.
The switch-hitting Lindor had a home run to left from the right side of the plate to start the Mets’ first and another to left — by inches, as a crew chief review showed — from the left side in the eighth inning. He broke out of a 14-game slump in which he hit .145 with 15 strikeouts and saw his batting average fall from .310 to .269.
“Great player, and as part of . . . the 162 [games] where they’re going to go through ups and downs, it’s not going to be perfect all the time,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “But when you see him going, especially from the left side and going left-center like that? That’s when he’s clicking.”
Lindor has been searching for his best righty swing and said of the home run: “I’m still not there yet. I got to continue to work. I’ve been watching Pete [Alonso] a lot, watching other guys like Tyrone [Taylor], the way they do things and trying to pick up some things . . . We don’t hit the same, but we all have similar movements.”
Lindor has 12 home runs and two multihomer games this season.
Starling Marte hit the third solo home run and Peterson (4-2, 2.69) pitched 5 2⁄3 innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts. This was his seventh straight start allowing two or fewer runs.
When the Rockies (9-48) loaded the bases in the third, Lindor leaped to snare a line drive by Thairo Estrada to save two runs and end the inning. Said Peterson, “That was awesome to see him get up for that and catch it and get us out of that.”
Huascar Brazoban gave up a run while recording four outs in relief, Reed Garrett pitched a scoreless eighth and Edwin Diaz threw a scoreless ninth for his 12th save, striking out the side on 14 pitches.
After the strong performance, Soto said he “knows I’ve been struggling and I haven’t come through for the team, but I will.”
“He is going to only continue to climb,” Lindor said. “Everybody from the outside keeps on saying ‘Where’s Soto? Where’s Soto?’ but we’ve seen . . . he has good at-bats . . . He’s going to be great. He going to end up with his normal numbers.”
One number that can’t be ignored, despite the Mets’ 35-22 record, is the glaringly bad .211 average with runners in scoring position they carried into Friday’s game. It ranked them 28th of 30 in MLB and dead last in the National League.
The organization is painfully aware of it, especially lately. In the last 13 games, the Mets have hit .165 (18-for-109) with runners in scoring position.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday that the organization is looking to address the concern.
“I think there is a skill in slowing down the moment and I think there is a skill in handling pressure and putting yourself in the best frame of mind to succeed in those moments when the intensity is a little higher,” he said. “Once you do all of that, I think the result is still somewhat random . . . With that said, we clearly have not been good in that spot over the course of the year, and more recently, over the last 10 days to two weeks.
“I do think we have to start from the position of: Is there something we can control? Is there something we can look at to get better? We’re certainly doing that work, that investigation. Our players are extremely aware of this and sometimes you wonder, is that actually a good thing or a bad thing to be as aware of this as they all are?”
Notes & quotes: The Mets will go with a six-man rotation as they play 10 games in 10 days, with Paul Blackburn taking a start against the Dodgers in Los Angeles . . . The Mets announced Lewis Sherr as their new president of business operations. He will be responsible for overseeing all front-office operations except for baseball operations . . . Before the game, the Mets recalled righthanded reliever Chris Devenski and optioned Brandon Waddell to Triple-A Syracuse.
