Since Mickey’s Miscue, the Mets have won two straight games.
Thanks to late-inning heroics from Todd Frazier and Jeff McNeil and a flurry of moves by Mickey Callaway that worked, the Mets knocked off the inept Giants 7-3 in Thursday’s matinee at Citi Field.
Life gets tougher with the red-hot Rockies coming to town followed by a Subway Series trip to Yankee Stadium and then more contenders.
“It’s good to win two in a row, especially after the other night,’’ Frazier told The Post after his off-balance, scoop-shot home run to left snapped a 3-3 tie in the eighth inning.
“Mickey understood,’’ Frazier said. “He made a mistake. We’re all competitors. We get it and I think Noah [Syndergaard] did a good job too, staying within the moment and understanding what happened. We can all learn from that. You learn something new every day in this game. For us to win these last two and get two out of three, we know what we need to do.
“When we face teams like this, we have to take two out of three or three out of four, whatever it is. But now it’s time. It’s time to beat those teams we need to beat and get back in contention.’’
That starts on Friday night at Citi Field with ace Jacob deGrom going against Colorado’s Antonio Senzatela. The Subway Series is Monday and Tuesday at Yankee Stadium against Frazier’s old team.
“I can’t wait,’’ Frazier said. “I love it.’’
It was kind of fitting Frazier and McNeil, two hitters with unorthodox swings, got the Mets going Thursday. McNeil, pinch hitting for Amed Rosario, fought off a tough two-strike changeup from Reyes Moronta to dump a single into left to score Juan Lagares to tie the game at 3-3 in the seventh. In that inning Callaway pinch hit for Rosario and Dom Smith, who had hit back-to-back homers to start the first.
Frazier did his thing on a curveball from Mark Melancon, basically going down on one knee and with one hand flicking the ball out of the ballpark. The ball kept carrying like the lively 2019 baseball does.
“Frazier is taking the same swings in the Little League World Series that he is taking today,’’ Callaway said.
Yes he is, going back to the days of Toms River East American.
Callaway does things a little differently and so do McNeil and Frazier. So do the Mets.
“They can kind of contort their body in different ways and try to put the bat on the ball,’’ Callaway said. “Most hitting coaches these days are teaching only use your ‘A’ swing and that’s mostly one spot of the zone that you can cover. These guys go and hit good pitches sometimes. The pitch Frazier hit out, that was a good pitch, the guy executed a good pitch, and he made him pay and won us a game. There’s value to that. It’s hard to game plan for them.’’
With a smile, McNeil said that his pinch hit “was like my ‘D’ or my ‘C’ swing, It wasn’t very good, but it ended up working out.’’
For his first career pinch-hit RBI.
In the dugout teammates were asking Frazier, “Man, how did you do that?’’
“I’ve been doing that my whole life,’’ Frazier said he told them. “Not even being cocky. Check tape. At the end of the day I’m glad I contributed. That’s why you always get one more at-bat and find ways to do it.
“There’s tons of ways of getting the job, especially with two strikes, I don’t care how I look.
“If I’m off-balance and I have to throw the bat to try to hit the ball I will. Bunt the ball to the right side of the field, whatever it takes, look what Dom Smith did bunting the ball to third base after hitting the home run, it was a perfect bunt. That’s baseball. Play the game. And that’s what we’ve been doing the last two games.’’
Whatever it takes might be the new theme for the Mets.
Against this coming stretch of good teams, Callaway is going to have to manage better, the Mets will have to play better.
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