Alonso, Vogelbach go deep as Mets win series finale

The Mets simply annihilated the last-place Nationals in their series finale in D.C. this afternoon, winning 9-5 to take two of three games in the series. It was a nice rebound fro a lackluster performance on Tuesday night in Jacob deGrom’s long-awaited return from the injured list.

While the Mets have score a lot of runs without hitting a ton of home runs this year, this game was fully decided on two swings. Pete Alonso hit a two-run shot in the top of the third to open the scoring, and in the top of the fifth, Daniel Vogelbach hit a grand slam to put the Mets up 6-0 and effectively seal the victory.

In the sixth, the Mets tacked on a couple more runs, this time without hitting home runs, as Tomás Nido doubled in Luis Guillorme before Nido came around to score later in the inning when Starling Marte hit into a fielder’s choice. Jeff McNeil scored a run in the ninth on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Guillorme, too, to tack on one more.

Chris Bassitt was also excellent, as he went seven scoreless innings with four strikeouts, one walk, and just six hits allowed. And he now has a 3.61 ERA on the season.

Following Bassitt’s start, Trevor May made his return from the injured list, his first appearance since May 2, and threw a scoreless inning. Mychal Givens, for whom the Mets traded yesterday, came on for the ninth inning and had a disastrous debut, surrendering three runs while recording only two outs during his appearance and forcing the Mets to further use their bullpen ahead of a give-game series with the Braves this weekend. And Seth Lugo, who replaced him, allowed two more inherited baserunners to score, giving Givens a whopping five earned runs in his first outing. As a Met, Givens has a 67.49 ERA.

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
Federal Baseball

Box scores

MLB.com
ESPN

Win Probability Added

FanGraphs

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Chris Bassitt, +24.6% WPA
Big Mets loser: Francisco Lindor, -5.0% WPA
Mets pitchers: +24.8% WPA
Mets hitters: +25.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Pete Alonso hits a two-run home run in the third, +21.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Luis Garcia singles in the bottom of the first, -5.3% WPA