SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Mark Vientos is hardly guaranteed playing time and will have to earn many of his at-bats this season.<\/p>\n
Over the past four games he\u2019s built up a decent amount of equity.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, he had a second straight game of reaching base at least three times, helping lead a 9-0 rout of the Giants at Oracle Park.<\/p>\n
The Mets hardly missed Juan Soto<\/a> in winning their second straight. Soto, who departed Friday\u2019s game<\/a> in the first inning with a right calf strain that was deemed \u201cminor\u201d following an MRI, will rest until at least Tuesday \u2014 when a decision is likely on whether he will need an injured list stint.<\/p>\n Vientos is among those carrying the load. He was in the middle of two scoring rallies on this night and finished 3-for-5 in leading a 12-hit attack. Suddenly, the Mets scoring woes in six games that followed the season opener seem like 19th-century history.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the best part is guys are going, we had a good day all of us together,\u201d Vientos said. \u201cClay [Holmes] pitched a heck of a game, and it was fun today.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Vientos hits an RBI single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants. AP<\/p>\n It was just two weeks ago that Vientos was set to break camp with the team after going 2-for-35 (.057) in the Grapefruit League.<\/p>\n \u201cWe kept telling him in spring training, \u2018Keep hitting the ball hard, keep controlling the strike zone,\u2019\u201d manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cAs a human, as a competitor, they want to see results. And it\u2019s good to see him having the start that he\u2019s having right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolstering Vientos\u2019 performance (he owns a 1.291 OPS) has been his respectable work at first base, a position he\u2019s sharing as Jorge Polanco deals with left Achilles tendinitis.<\/p>\n Holmes handled much of the run prevention with seven shutout innings to follow the gem Nolan McLean produced a night earlier when the rookie carried a perfect game into the sixth before walking two batters and allowing a single.<\/p>\n New York Mets pinch hitter Tyrone Taylor (15) celebrates his three-run home run against the San Francisco Giants during the fifth inning at Oracle Park. D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n Holmes allowed only three hits and walked two over the 90-pitch performance. It was a second straight strong outing for Holmes, who allowed two earned runs over 5 \u00b2\/\u2083 innings against the Cardinals on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have played a lot of extra-inning games, and the bullpen has been used a lot, so I was just trying to go fill it up,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cGo fill it up and once we got the lead see how many innings I could go to take some pressure off the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n About the only semblance of trouble Holmes faced was in the second inning. Matt Chapman led off with an infield single, reaching second on Bo Bichette\u2019s throwing error. But with help from Vientos, whose diving stop and toss to Holmes covering the bag produced the second out, Holmes kept a 3-0 lead intact.<\/p>\n New York Mets starting pitcher Clay Holmes (35) delivers a pitch against the San Francisco Giants during the seventh inning at Oracle Park. D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n \u201c[Vientos] has been really good,\u201d Holmes said referring to Vientos\u2019 first base work. \u201cHe\u2019s been putting in the work, we all see it as players. Just how badly he wants it.\u201d<\/p>\n Carson Benge\u2019s grounder to third base with the bases loaded in the second turned into two runs for the Mets. Chapman booted the ball before his throw to first baseman Jerar Encarnacion was mishandled for a second error on the play. Vientos and Jared Young raced home. The lead extended to 3-0 on Luis Torrens\u2019 RBI groundout.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tDelivering insights on all things Amazin\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Mets by Mike Puma, exclusively on Sports+\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t hit the ball out of the infield, but the fact we were able to put the ball in play there helped us,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cNot only can we hit the ball out of the ballpark, but putting together some really good at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n Vientos doubled to begin the rally and Young walked before Semien\u2019s infield single loaded the bases. It was the third straight game with at least one hit for Semien, who snapped an 0-for-20 drought Thursday.<\/p>\n Bichette\u2019s RBI single in the fifth widened the lead to 4-0. Torrens singled leading off the inning and reached second on a groundout before Bichette delivered for a team-leading sixth RBI this season. Vientos, for his third hit in the game, stroked an RBI single in the inning to give the Mets their fifth run against Landon Roupp. After lefty Ryan Borucki entered, Tyrone Taylor was deployed as a pinch-hitter for Young and belted a three-run homer that buried the Giants in an 8-0 hole.<\/p>\n Taylor stroked an RBI single in the seventh that put the Mets ahead 9-0 following Brett Baty\u2019s leadoff double.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Mark Vientos is hardly guaranteed playing time and will have to earn many of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20,9,2683,11,320,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-186029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-giants","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-mets","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}