Juan Soto returned from the injured list<\/a> to hit the go-ahead single earlier in the fifth. He drove in Francisco Lindor after the shortstop doubled to right field with one out, breaking a 1-1 tie. After Javier retired Bo Bichette, Carson Benge kept the inning alive with a single to left field, putting two on with two outs for Young.<\/p>\nDown 0-2 in the count, Young pulled a sweeper down the right-field line and into the corner, sending Taylor Trammell chasing after it. Soto and Benge scored easily, and Young slid into third ahead of the tag, putting the Mets up 4-1.<\/p>\n
Right-hander Nolan McLean gave up one unearned run in the first inning, then blanked Houston the rest of the way through, allowing only two hits, walking three and striking out four over seven innings. He worked primarily off of his fastball and his sinker, barely even using the spin pitches he\u2019s become known for.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The game plan was] a little bit different, but once I saw how aggressive they were, I was just trying to play the two fastballs off of each other and get some weak contact,\u201d McLean said.<\/p>\n
The Mets\u2019 stars played like stars, with Lindor and Soto providing a spark at the top of the order, and McLean dealing against a tough lineup. But it was Young, the Mets\u2019 Canadian role player, who keyed the victory. The first baseman\/outfielder went 3-for-4 with a triple and a career-high three RBI.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of hitters become aware of how pitchers are attacking them and get hyper-focused on that, but the pitcher still has to execute,\u201d Green said. \u201cEvery hitter in the game has some relative weakness, so he does a nice job of not worrying about that. \u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth asking whether the Mets have found their first baseman for next season. The answer isn\u2019t Mark Vientos, and it\u2019s tough to know what Jorge Polanco will be capable of given the injuries this season. Young was used mostly as a platoon hitter earlier in the season because of his career splits and April meniscus surgery. Now that he\u2019s been in the lineup every day, he\u2019s improved his numbers against left-handed pitching, and he\u2019s provided better defense at first base than Vientos or Brett Baty.<\/p>\n
Young drove in the first run of the game with an RBI single off left-handed opener Bennett Sousa, then scored in the bottom of the eighth on a two-run double by Francisco Alvarez.<\/p>\n
One of the hottest hitters on the team as of late, he\u2019s hit .338 with 10 extra-base hits, 16 RBI and an .882 OPS since Aug. 5. He\u2019s hitting .350 with runners in scoring position this season.<\/p>\n
In a career-high 87 games, he\u2019s hit .272 with a .779 OPS, all career-high numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re just getting to see who he is,\u201d Green said. \u201cIt\u2019s not so much that he\u2019s changed,\u00a0or we\u2019ve\u00a0done an amazing job helping him evolve into a big leaguer. I think our scouting group did a nice job identifying somebody that could help in this capacity, and he\u2019s been everything we could hope for.\u201d<\/p>\n
The series is tied 1-1 and will conclude Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The difference between the Jared Young who played for Andy Green in Chicago with the Cubs and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66201,72874,2032,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-332964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-astros","tag-jared-young","tag-mets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332964","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=332964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}