Mets bounce-back on West Coast, take series from Angels

A 5-3 double play ended the inning and got Holmes out of further trouble. From there, he held the Angels scoreless, giving up only three more hits and striking out six. Despite the three walks, he managed to pitch into the seventh inning, and likely would have finished seven strong had it not been for an error by shortstop Bo Bichette.

Right-hander Luke Weaver got the final out of the inning to preserve the win for Holmes (4-2).

“That first at-bat, you know, I think some pitches were fouled off trying to see where we were at there, and it was a good at-bat,” Holmes said. “I probably was a little too careful with Trout, and knew I was kind of making some good pitches and my command wasn’t too bad. It was just a matter of kind of getting the ground ball. I was able to get out of that with the run one run and settle in.”

The error could have just as easily been ruled a hit. Bichette, a career shortstop playing there again with Ronny Mauricio and Francisco Lindor both on the injured list, had a tough play on a chopper at the edge of the dirt by Oswald Peraza. He made a great stop and a hard throw, but it was off the line and not in time.

Down to shortstops, the Mets have Bichette and Brett Baty playing back at their natural positions. A ground-ball pitcher like Holmes needs a strong infield, and for the first time all season, he had that. Baty made that key double play in the first inning. Bichette had a nice backhanded stop for the out right before the error.

In the bottom of the ninth with one on and one out, Carson Benge made an outstanding diving catch in right field to rob Vaughn Grisson of extra bases and prevent a run from scoring.

“I dove still not knowing if I was going to make it,” Benge said.

Vientos might not be the most fundamentally sound first baseman, but he may still be better than Jorge Polanco, who was signed to play first base after playing middle infield and third base nearly his entire career. Polanco was only able to play two games at the position before getting injured. Now on the mend, the Mets may need to give him extra work before playing him there again once he’s eligible to come off the injured list.

As it turns out, playing everyone out of position isn’t the most effective way to achieve the goal of “run prevention.”

“Especially a guy like me, I need the defense,” Holmes said. “Just to everyone out there giving everything they have and working with where they are is huge. Brett back at third and Bo at short, it’s just good to see. There’s a lot of confidence in those guys so for me, it’s like, man, the more plays they make, the more I kind of feed off of it.”

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