Mets batter Giants again as Tyrone Taylor drives in four runs
Mets pinch-hitter Tyrone Taylor, right, celebrates with Mark Vientos, middle, and Brett Baty after hitting a three-run home run in the top of the fifth inning against the Giants on Saturday in San Francisco. Credit: Getty Images/Lachlan Cunningham
SAN FRANCISCO — No Juan Soto? No problem for the Mets, who relied on Clay Holmes’ brilliance and a team-wide offensive effort, including a four-RBI performance by Tyrone Taylor, to clobber the Giants again Saturday night at Oracle Park, this time by the score of 9-0.
Mark Vientos — quickly putting his Grapefruit League malaise (.057 batting average) behind him — is 7-for-13 in his last four games after adding three hits Saturday, including a double and the RBI single that preceded Taylor’s pinch-hit three-run homer in the fifth.
Since Soto was forced to leave Friday’s game in the first inning, the Mets have scored 17 runs — along with racking up 23 hits — and the domination was so complete by late Saturday that the Giants used infielder Christian Koss to mop up for the ninth.
“I think that’s just the norm for us,” Vientos said. “One through nine, we’re really solid and I feel like that’s going to be consistently how we’re going to be playing throughout the season.”
Holmes definitely got the run-prevention memo in stifling the Giants for seven innings. He allowed three singles — one of the infield variety — and retired 13 of 14 before Jung Hoo Lee’s one-out single in the seventh.
“I think I got in a rhythm there,” said Holmes, who has a 1.42 ERA. “Was throwing my pitches down and was able to get some good contact on the ground, which really helped.”
The Mets — who beat the Giants, 10-3, on Friday night — didn’t put Soto on the injured list before Saturday’s game, but manager Carlos Mendoza still had to shuffle things around with the $765 million slugger unavailable because of a right calf strain. Jared Young was in leftfield and Brett Baty in right with Carson Benge sliding over to center.
It was Mendoza’s pivotal in-game decision, however, that blew things open in the fifth. After Bo Bichette’s run-scoring single gave him his third straight game with an RBI, Baty and Vientos followed with a pair of two-out hits, prompting Mendoza to call on Taylor to face lefty reliever Ryan Borucki.
Taylor made his manager look like a genius by swatting a three-run homer for his first hit this season, a 419-foot blast that put the Mets up 8-0. In the seventh, Taylor followed Baty’s leadoff double with an RBI single.
“Just a bunch of studs,” Taylor said. “We got so many players in the lineup that can make a pitcher throw nine pitches, then rocket a ball in any given at-bat. It’s a special lineup.”
Vientos’ April resurgence is yet another reminder that Grapefruit League games don’t count. When asked if maybe we shouldn’t bother keeping track of exhibition stats altogether, he smiled. “That’s funny,” he said. “I guess so.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
