Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil continue leading the way for red-hot Mets offense
After a disappointing stretch of baseball following their trade deadline sell-off, the Mets have gotten back into a groove. They’ve now pushed their winning streak to four games and are victorious in six of their last seven.
The starting pitching has been great of late but even more impressive has been the recent performance of the offense, and that includes Saturday night’s 13-2 rout of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Pete Alonso continues to mash and DJ Stewart is on a nice little hot streak, but leading the charge for New York’s red hot offense has been middle infielders Jeff McNeil and Francisco Lindor.
Saturday at Busch Stadium, Lindor put together another four-hit performance and McNeil contributed three hits of his own. Overall, they finished a combined 7-for-10 with two doubles, four runs scored and two RBI.
The double-play tandem has been on fire of late for New York.
McNeil has reached base in all but three games this month and he’s hitting .316 with a .361 OBP over that span. He’s also driven in 12 runs and has six extra-base hits while striking out just six times.
Lindor is currently riding a six-game hitting streak and he has a .881 OPS during the month of August. He’s also added five doubles, a homer, ten RBI, and four stolen bases.
Mets manager Buck Showalter said postgame Saturday that it's good to see them getting things done and setting the table towards the top of the lineup.
“They’ve been doing it all year,” the skipper said. “Lindy just posts up and gets after it and then Jeff is starting to heat up. Both those guys are really coming on and chasing what they’ve done all their career.”
After a brutal start to the season, the defending batting champ is now up to a .264 average on the year. Lindor has put together a 20-20 campaign and is back looking like a top shortstop in baseball.
The Mets offense has been clicking on all cylinders with them hitting two and three in the order. This recent hot stretch now has New York just 6.0 games out of the final National League Wild Card spot.
They'll look to push their winning streak to five games as they face-off with Cardinals right-hander Dakota Hudson (4-0, 4.03 ERA) in the series finale Sunday afternoon.
