Mets bring 'A game' to win over Cardinals as Tylor Megill, Daniel Vogelbach bounce back
Daniel Vogelbach #32 of the New York Mets celebrates his sixth inning home run against the St. Louis Cardinals with teammate Mark Canha #19 at Citi Field on Friday, June 16, 2023. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Very little has gone right for the Mets in what’s turned out to be a nightmare stretch during a disappointing season. They were manhandled by the Blue Jays and Atlanta, lost Pete Alonso to injury and Drew Smith to a sticky-stuff violation, and came a breath away from getting swept by the Yankees.
But even though they entered Friday having lost nine of their last 11 games, they had two powerful antidotes in their favor: a stirring extra-inning Subway Series win on Wednesday and a far more unfortunate team on deck.
The Cardinals were the cure for what’s ailed them. Well, at least for a day.
Tommy Pham, Starling Marte and Jeff McNeil had multi-hit games in the Mets’ 6-1 win at Citi Field, including a two-RBI night for Pham, who’s hitting .357 with 15 RBIs in his last 13 games.
“Tommy is playing with a little bit of an edge to him and he’s feeling it,” Buck Showalter said. “He thinks when he makes an out, it’s a fluke. You go through some of those periods, [even] as a team. Last year, we might [have lost] a game and it was like, OK, that was just the baseball gods . . . We’re hoping to get back there and we’re hoping these last two games can be a part of that.”
Tylor Megill (6-4) had a bounce-back from his disastrous nine-run performance against the Pirates, allowing one run and four hits in six innings with no walks and seven strikeouts in one of the Mets’ more dominant outings in a tough season.
The first three batters reached against Miles Mikolas and two scored on Brett Baty’s two-out double. Baty then scored on Pham’s seeing-eye single.
The Mets scored two more in the third. After Marte and McNeil hit back-to-back singles to put runners at the corners, Francisco Lindor hit a long sacrifice fly that also allowed McNeil to advance to second, and Pham singled to make it 5-0.
“You’re constantly trying to prove the naysayers wrong,” said Pham, who’s hit his way into an everyday role. “Even the games I’m not playing, I still prepare like I am. That way, when my name is called upon, I feel like I’m already ready.”
Megill cruised for the first four innings, allowing nothing but a single until Willson Contreras led off the fifth with a home run to left that stayed barely fair. Jordan Walker doubled and Megill hit Dylan Carlson with a pitch — setting the righty up for the sort of disastrous inning that has hurt him often this year — but then the Cards folded. Megill struck out Paul DeJong, Omar Narvaez threw out Walker inexplicably trying to steal third, and Tommy Edman struck out swinging to end the threat.
After sitting out since June 8 for what Showalter hoped would be a mental reset, Daniel Vogelbach tacked on to the lead in the sixth, hitting a 401-foot bomb to the second deck in rightfield to make it 6-1. It was his first home run since May 7 and only his second extra-base hit in that span. It broke an 0-for-12 streak.
“We were all excited for him,” Pham said. “When you see a guy grinding the way he has and to have some success like that, it’s a huge relief off of all of us.”
A lot of that has to do with the Mets reaching to become the team everyone expected to see when this season began — at least while there’s still hope of a turnaround.
“I think we all know what we’re capable of as a team,” Vogelbach said. “It’s nice to put together a couple games there and [hopefully] we can build off of it and keep going.”
Notes & quotes: Pete Alonso is taking swings in the cage just a little over a week after landing on the injured list with a bone bruise in his wrist — typically a three- to four-week injury. “He feels good and is making a lot of progress,” Showalter said. “We’re feeling really lucky about what could have happened and where we are and I think he’ll be joining us before long. Don’t know what ‘before long’ is.” . . . Little-used rookie Mark Vientos will get some more game action in the coming days, with Showalter tentatively slating him to play Sunday and Monday . . . Eighty-year-old former Met Steve Dillon will throw out the first pitch Saturday. Dillon, of Baldwin, memorably pitched off the mound at last year’s Old- Timers’ Day at age 79.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
