ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Rookie Nick Morabito had a three-run double for his first major league hit and later made a sparkling defensive play in left field, helping the New York Mets beat the Tampa Bay Rays 10-4 on Wednesday night. <\/p>\n
Morabito, who entered as a pinch runner for Mark Vientos in the sixth inning, came up with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh and slashed a 2-2 pitch from Manuel Rodr\u00edguez down the left-field line to turn the Mets’ two-run lead into a 9-4 advantage.<\/p>\n
In the eighth, Victor Mesa Jr. sent a sinking liner to left that Morabito chased down and made a diving catch to end the inning.<\/p>\n
Morabito, who started his big league career hitless in his first 12 at-bats, added a single in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Juan Soto slugged his 23rd homer \u2014 a solo shot in the eighth \u2014 as part of the Mets’ 14-hit performance.<\/p>\n
Jared Young hit an RBI single and Marcus Semien doubled in a run as the Mets scored three times in the first off Griffin Jax (6-10), making his first start in a month. <\/p>\n
Brett Baty chased Jax with a three-run double with two outs that put the Mets up 6-0 in the third. Jax allowed seven hits and walked two.<\/p>\n
Justin Hagenman went three innings in his first start for the Mets this season and second of his career. The right-hander retired the first eight Rays before issuing a two-out walk to Taylor Walls. Yandy D\u00edaz and Jonathan Aranda had back-to-back singles to cut it to 6-1.<\/p>\n
Cedric Mullins singled in a run and Richie Palacios hit his sixth homer, a two-run shot off Chris Devenski that got the Rays within 6-4 in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Dedniel N\u00fa\u00f1ez (1-0) got four outs and rookie Nate Lavender retired the next five and still has not allowed a run through 12 appearances. Daniel Duarte got four outs and Jonathan Pintaro pitched a perfect ninth to end it.<\/p>\n
Junior Caminero went 0 for 4 and struck out twice for the Rays, ending a 15-game hitting streak<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUp next<\/p>\n
Mets: RHP Nolan McLean (10-8, 3.06) starts Friday in a brief three-game homestand against the Giants. <\/p>\n
Rays: LHP Shane McClanahan (10-6, 3.19) starts Thursday in Texas opposite Rangers RHP Cal Quantrill (6-5, 3-01).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Rookie Nick Morabito had a three-run double for his first major league hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[160359,2724,363,99],"class_list":["post-834833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}