Even as issues continued to plague the Mets off the field Thursday, they continued taking care of business on it.
On a day when acting general manager Zack Scott was placed on administrative leave after pleading not guilty to driving while intoxicated, only adding to the club’s hectic week, the Mets kept taking advantage of the soft spot in their schedule with a 4-3 win over the Marlins at Citi Field.
“It’s been a lot of stuff going on off the field all year, not just this week,” said Dominic Smith, who broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning with a pinch-hit single. “This is something we’re kind of accustomed to and something we’re not going to get distracted by. Our job is to come in every day and play a baseball game and try to win.
“We don’t let the outside noise get in the way of that. We just try to play baseball, play as hard as we can. That’s all we can do. Whether we win or lose, we just play our hearts out and that’s why I love this group.”
After Smith’s clutch hit, Trevor May and Edwin Diaz pitched a scoreless inning each to send the Mets (66-67) to their fifth straight win (though their winning streak is technically four games because the first half of Tuesday’s doubleheader was the resumption of a suspended game from April). Either way, it marks their longest winning streak since May.
By sweeping the last-place Marlins (55-79), the Mets are within five games of the first-place Braves, who beat the Rockies on Thursday night.
The Mets now head to Washington for a five-game series against the Nationals, continuing a 14-game stretch against the bottom two teams in the NL East as they try to make up ground after a brutal August.
“To see stuff starting to click over the last couple days, it’s very huge for our momentum,” Smith said.
Carlos Carrasco delivered a third straight solid start for the Mets, giving up three runs over 5 ¹/₃ innings. It got off to an inauspicious start, though, as he gave up a home run on his first pitch of the game for the second time this season. The Marlins made it a 2-0 lead after Jazz Chisholm doubled and took third on Brandon Nimmo’s fielding error, then scored on Jesus Aguilar’s single.
Jonathan Villar stayed hot in the bottom of the first, matching Rojas and crushing a homer on the first pitch of the inning.
Francisco Lindor doubled home Nimmo in the fourth inning to tie the game and later put the Mets up 3-2 when he induced a balk to score from third — the second time this week he has done so.
After Aguilar’s RBI single, Carrasco settled in to retire the next 12 batters in order and 14 of 15 until the sixth inning, when he left with runners on first and second and one out.
Aaron Loup entered and walked back-to-back batters on full counts, the second forcing in a run to tie the game.
But Smith came off the bench an inning later to win it for the Mets, coming through despite his playing time recently taking a hit. He was out of the starting lineup for the fifth time in the past eight games Thursday, but delivered the big hit when the Mets needed it most to keep winning amid the off-field drama.
“Clutch,” manager Luis Rojas said. “I’m very proud that he’s taken this diminished playing time into working. He’s been in the cage, he’s been working on himself and trying to find himself. When a guy does that and comes in and contributes for the team in a big situation, it just tells you the discipline a player has.”