CHICAGO — The crowd at Guaranteed Rate Field was about as sparse as you could imagine for a team on pace to lose 125 games. The loudest creature in attendance might have been Chewbacca, on hand along with Yoda, Obi Wan Kenobi and some Stormtroopers for Star Wars night.
“Star Wars” might have been a box office hit, but it sure bombed on the South Side on Friday night.
The biggest hit of the night came when J.D. Martinez took a 2-2 sweeper from Right-hander Jonathan Cannon over the left field fence for a two-out, two-run homer in the third inning. This followed an RBI double by Jesse Winker, who used the extra-base hit to put the Mets ahead for good in a 5-1 win over the Chicago White Sox in the opening game of a three-game set.
Winker and Martinez led the way for the Mets (71-64) against the White Sox (31-105). Winker went 3-for-4 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored, and Martinez finished 2-for-4 on the night with his 16th home run of the year and two RBI.
“That was big,” Martinez said of the two-out rally in the third inning. “I’ve been on a lot of teams — a lot of good teams. Those two outs are just as important as no outs, and if you’re doing that, you’re a winning-caliber team.”
Making his first Major League start in a month, right-hander Tylor Megill struggled to find the strike zone at times, but got better as the game went on and he got into a rhythm. He mostly made pitches when he needed to to get out of trouble.
The White Sox took a 1-0 lead early. Megill led off the game by walking Nicky Lopez. A ground ball for the first out moved Lopez over to second, allowing him to score easily on Andrew Benintendi’s RBI double. But Megill then quickly retired the next two.
After the Mets tied the game at 1-1 in the top of the second, Megill struggled with his command. Korey Lee led off with a single. Megill got ahead 0-2 on Dominic Fletcher, but the outfielder then fouled off four straight pitches and Megill plunked him on the fifth. Less than ideal for a pitcher who has long struggled to put away hitters.
With two outs, Lopez hit a dribbler past the mound, too far out of reach for a charging Francisco Lindor to make a play. The runners tagged and Chicago loaded the bases. It looked like trouble when Luis Robert Jr. hit a line drive to center field, but he hit it right to Bader for the out.
“He got out of that bases-loaded jam, and then I thought he settled in nicely,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “He gave us 5 1/3, he was able to go back out for the sixth. I thought after the first couple of innings, he settled down and made pitches.”
Megill pitched around a leadoff single in the third and then retired nine straight from there to end his outing. Over 5 1/3 innings, he allowed five hits, one walk and struck out six, including striking out the side in the fifth, earning his first win since June 16 (3-5).
The big righty has had good moments in the big leagues and plenty of bad. Consistency has always eluded him at this level, so few could blame the Mets if they decide to option him and bring up a reliever. It’s still unclear what his future holds, but he’ll most likely get another turn through the rotation.
Megill was called up Friday to take the place of the injured Paul Blackburn in the rotation, and with Blackburn not eligible to come off of the injured list until Sept. 7, Megill will likely get one more start.
“All I can do is what I can do when I go out and play,” Megill said. “It’s not my decision to make, but I’m going to go out and try to help this team in any way possible.”
Cannon (2-9) was charged with four earned runs on five hits, walked four and struck out three over five innings.
It was a solid win. Sure, they stranded runners in scoring position, but they pitched well, got a big defensive play by Tyrone Taylor in the bottom of the eighth when he jumped into the netting over the right field seats for a fly ball and came up with it. Once they took a lead, they never gave the White Sox a chance to get it back.
The Mets will take them any way they come, especially since the Atlanta Braves keep winning to maintain their grip on the third NL Wild Card spot.
“It’s just going out there and telling these guys over and over,” Martinez said. “It’s like, ‘Guys, we’re not supposed to be here.’ I keep coming back to this story, but at the beginning of the year when I got here, no one was expecting us to be anywhere near the playoffs.
“And here we are in the thick of it.”
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