Opportunistic Mets chase another win over Cardinals

The resilient New York Mets are back — and well ahead of the pace they set last year.

The Mets will look to build on their latest dramatic win when they host the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday afternoon in the third contest of a four-game series.

Right-hander Kodai Senga (2-1, 1.06 ERA) is slated to start for New York against St. Louis left-hander Matthew Liberatore (1-1, 3.93).

The Mets earned another comeback victory Friday night, when Francisco Lindor hit a walk-off homer leading off the ninth inning to lift New York to a 5-4 win.

Lindor’s 250th career homer — and his first walk-off blast since 2018, when he was with Cleveland — ended an evening in which the Mets came back from a pair of deficits to take a 4-3 lead into the ninth, when New York’s Huascar Brazoban gave up a leadoff homer to Brendan Donovan.

The Mets have posted five comeback wins during their National League East-best 13-7 start.

“I think the group as a whole has the mentality that we’re never out of a game,” said Mets left-hander David Peterson, who gave up three runs in 5 1/3 innings on Friday. “If we’re ahead, we’re trying to finish that game and get away with a win. If we’re behind, we’re fighting our way back until the last out’s recorded.”

The Mets made the NL Championship Series last season, when they had 41 come-from-behind victories and won 24 games in their final at-bat, including 11 in walk-off fashion.

“I think we have a lot of the same pieces that really instilled that last year,” Peterson said. “It definitely hit a lot sooner than it did last year.”

The Cardinals are hoping a spate of narrow defeats will pay Mets-like dividends sooner than later. St. Louis was walked off in the ninth inning for the first time this season Friday but is 0-4 in extra-inning games, two of which it lost in walk-off fashion.

St. Louis led in the ninth inning or later in all three of the walk-off defeats.

“You like to see some fight out of the club, and that’s what you are looking for,” Donovan said, “You want to win and stack (some) wins together, but you want to see how you respond to situations like that early in the year.”

Donovan remained one of the hottest hitters in the game by going 2-for-4 to extend his hitting streak to a career-best 14 games. The 28-year-old, who entered the year a .280 hitter in three major league seasons, is batting .463 (25-for-54) during the streak, which is the longest active run in the majors.

He leads the NL with a .380 average.

“He’s always been a good hitter,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “There’s not a whole lot different other than he’s on a really good streak right now. He’s focused and he’s executing his plan. But this is a guy that’s shown the ability to hit for a while now.”

Senga and Liberatore both earned a win with a scoreless effort on Sunday. Senga tossed seven innings of four-hit ball in the Mets’ 8-0 victory over the Athletics, while Liberatore gave up three hits over six innings as the Cardinals cruised past the Philadelphia Phillies 7-0.

Senga is 1-1 with a 3.29 ERA in two career starts against the Cardinals. Liberatore is 0-1 with a 7.00 ERA in three games (one start) vs. the Mets.

–Field Level Media