QUEENS, NY — Early home runs from Carson Benge and Marcus Semien, and a sixth-inning moonshot of a grand slam by Juan Soto carried the Mets to a 10-1 victory and a series sweep of the Miami Marlins on Sunday afternoon at Citi Field.
Soto remains scorching at the plate, with his third-career grand slam coming in a 6-1 game, and serving as the coup de grace of a sixth-inning two-out rally that began when Marlins reliever Josh White, making his MLB debut, set down the first two men he faced in an instant.
But walks to Semien and Benge, which sandwiched a Luis Torrens hit-by-pitch, jammed the bases, and then White walked Bo Bichette to put the Mets up five. Soto then obliterated a hanging slider 433 feet to the Shea Bridge in right-center field. The star slugger watched the majestic blast leave the yard, then emphatically flipped his bat toward his own dugout.
“In that situation, I know where the pressure,” Soto said. “I just tried to execute, get a good pitch. I know he was kind of wild, so I knew he was going to try to get in the zone early, so I was just ready to go.”
Over his last 17 games, Soto has nine home runs and 19 RBI.
After a dreadful 1-7 stretch, the Mets (26-33) have won four games in a row. With it, they move out of last place in the National League East past the Marlins, just the second time since April 29 that they are not occupying the bottom spot in the division.
“I feel like everybody knows what to do,” Soto said. “We have a plan, and we executed it throughout the whole series. The whole lineup came ready to attack with a plan, and we all did the same thing, and we attacked as a team.”
Benge, who entered Sunday’s game batting .323 with 14 RBI in his last 25 outings, took the third pitch of the afternoon from Marlins opener John King 418 feet to straightaway center to put the Mets on the board.
Semien made it a 3-0 game in the second when he jumped on an Anthony Bender first-pitch sinker and cracked it into the left-field seats for his fifth home run of the season. The veteran second baseman is having one of the best stretches of his first year with the Mets, going 7-for-20 (.350) with two home runs and four RBI during the six-game homestand.
“I’m just working hard every day in the cage,” Semien said. “You work hard to make sure you can go out in the game, see the ball well, hit the balls in the zone that you’re supposed to hit, and that’s always going to be the goal for me. There’s been lots of ups and downs, but the work never stops.”
Torrens made it 5-1 in the fourth inning with a two-out, two-RBI single to cap off the Mets’ first significant two-out rally, which began when AJ Ewing walked, Brett Baty singled, and Semien got a free pass. The catcher then sent a liner the other way into right field.
New York starter Nolan McLean rebounded from two dreadful starts, though there were still some significant warts within Sunday’s outing. The rookie right-hander walked a career-high five across five innings of work, where he allowed one run on two hits with a pair of strikeouts.
“Obviously, a few more walks that I’d like, some of those being where I was picking spots and trying to find a better matcup with a base open or something like that,” McLean said. “But there’s a few that got away from me. I’ve got to hone in.”
David Peterson saved the Mets’ bullpen ahead of their west-coast road trip to Seattle and San Diego, pitching the last four scoreless innings, allowing one hit and a walk with three strikeouts.
If you’re built up and you’re a long guy, that’s kind of your job to go as deep as you can when you get the ball,” Peterson, a demoted starter, said. “It’s nice after the last couple days to only use two guys today… Being able to get through that game with Nolan and I was a really good thing, and I think those guys will be fresh and ready to go.”
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