As Buck Showalter likes to say: “Tell the baseball gods your plans and they’ll laugh in your face.”
Dominic Smith may have been on the chopping block, but then he crushed too many baseballs to care. Smith enjoyed a 4-for-4 night at the plate with three RBI and a run scored, helping lead the Mets to a 10-6 win over the Phillies on Sunday night at Citi Field. Smith matched his career-high of four hits in a game, doing so for the first time since Sept. 6, 2020, which was also against the Phillies.
The Mets (16-7) won their seventh-straight series to start the year, becoming the first team to win their first seven series since the 2018 Diamondbacks.
Smith is among the few Mets players, alongside J.D. Davis and Luis Guillorme, who have minor-league options ahead of Monday’s noon deadline to trim rosters down to 26 men. Smith entered Sunday night batting 6-for-36 across 19 games with limited opportunities to contribute in an everyday role due to Pete Alonso’s custody of first base and the revolving door at designated hitter.
But after Smith filled up his column in the scorecard with a single, an RBI double, a two-run single and—just for good measure—another single, he forced the Mets hand. If the Mets, after Smith’s breakout night at the plate, decide to include him as part of their two roster cuts on Monday, it will be both cold-blooded and riot-inducing for their fan base.
Max Scherzer wasn’t his most dominant self on Sunday against a tough Phillies lineup, but he still managed to earn his fourth win as a Met and extend his unbeaten-starts streak to 24 consecutive outings.
Scherzer allowed four runs on five hits, including three home runs, with one walk and nine strikeouts in his six-inning start at Citi Field. The right-hander came out firing, striking out the first five batters he faced, before a certain divisional enemy opened the floodgates.
Kyle Schwarber, the ongoing Mets killer, became the ultimate Mets killer on Sunday when he hit not one, but two home runs off Scherzer. Schwarber has cranked 16 home runs in his first 36 games against the Mets, including 11 since the start of last season. Schwarber and the Phillies will meet the Mets again before the week is over, when the Amazin’s go to Philly on Thursday for a four-game series.
On Monday, the Mets will take on their next NL East division rival, the second-place Braves, in a four-game series at Citi Field. This week will feature the first meeting of the season between the Mets and Braves, and Chris Bassitt will kick off the series opener with his fifth start of the year.
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